Garbage emergency

That the Philippines emerged as the ocean’s biggest plastic polluter in the world is alarming and embarrassing.

Just a few weeks ago, Visual Capitalist came out with a pie graph on the highest ocean plastic waste polluters and the Philippines accounted for the biggest share of the pie with 356,371 metric tons annually, even beating India with 126,513 metric tons.

It is indeed alarming that we emit 35 percent of the ocean’s plastic.

But this comes as no surprise. Our country, which has 4,820 plastic emitting rivers, has such a poor record in waste management.

We all know that most of the plastic found in the water comes from the litter in our streets, beaches, shantytowns, our very own households.

And this is so much more than the Philippines being an international embarrassment.

It’s really about our country, our environment and our people – today’s generation and the succeeding ones.

If we don’t address this emergency, we may actually find much of our land buried in tons and tons of garbage — literally, with very little space left for us to live and move about freely.

We may reach a point of no return in a span of 10 years or less if we don’t act now.

What to do then?

First of all, it is important to adopt a drastic change in lifestyle because waste is a function of the population.

We need to reduce our consumption of anything and everything because the more we consume, the more waste and garbage we leave behind.

We can start right in our very own homes – by segregating our waste, recycling and reusing what can be recycled. We can likewise shift to more sustainable products.

Waste management

The more important solution is serious waste management as I learned recently when I sat down with long time executive Rufo Colayco and his son JV.

I’ve known Mr. Colayco from way back as head of the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA). Now, he is no longer in government but is instead back in the private sector running his own company, the Metro Clark Waste Management Corp. (MCWM).

MCWM, which is celebrating its 20th year this year, is the biggest and most modern and professionally run engineered sanitary landfill covering an area of almost 100 hectares in Clark, Pampanga. No other Philippine landfill comes close.

At present, the company serves some 150 LGUs in Central Luzon, picking up their waste and bringing this into the landfill. It also serves industrial users.

For its LGU clients, MCWM does not do house-to-house trash collection. Instead, the waste is picked up from designated points where the waste is segregated. The company only accepts “residual waste” from LGUs, and treats hazardous waste.

Rufo beams with pride in explaining how MCWM landfill works. It’s world-class, he says, even challenging me to see other landfills in the country for comparison.

Permitted and closely monitored by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the MCWM accepts medical and industrial waste, which must first be treated by accredited treatment facilities that employ specialized techniques before these can be accepted at MCWM’s disposal site.

So far, MCWM is the only facility in Southeast Asia certified with different ISO quality certifications.

It’s no doubt an important facility and we need to see more companies do this.

Waste to energy

The next project for MCWM is a waste-to-energy project, which is in partnership with a German company.

This project is aligned with the country’s sustainability efforts and would bring to the Philippines total investments of $220 to $250 million.

This would be at no cost to the government as it would be funded by MCWM, together with its partner Plambeck-Emirates.

Plambeck-Emirates is a joint venture between Plambeck Germany, a publicly listed firm with extensive experience in renewable energy projects, and the Royal Family of Abu Dhabi.

The consortium has already submitted its unsolicited proposal to BCDA in 2019. It is designed to reduce by up to 70 percent the volume of waste to be disposed of in MCWM’s landfill in Clark.

BCDA has yet to respond to the proposal but proponents are hoping to commence with the project as soon as possible, as part of a comprehensive waste management solution that MCWM said is already proven elsewhere in the world as an effective strategy to minimize waste.

“MCWM is ready and eager to start groundbreaking on a WTE facility as soon as the concession is renewed, having previously submitted a proposal for the same in 2019,” the company said.

A key feature of the proposed Integrated Waste Management System is a waste-to-energy power plant that will utilize waste as fuel.

Indeed, burning waste is not necessarily cheap; even controversial, too; but it gets things done – it reduces waste and produces electricity.

Circular economy

At the end of our meeting, Rufo and his son talked about the circular economy; of how we really need to embrace changes in the way we consume things if we want to see a sustainable future for us, our children, and our children’s children.

A circular economy is one that stops producing waste and instead makes use of that waste to create usable goods.

Ideally, no waste is produced but I personally think this is next to impossible, so while we continue to produce waste, we should do what we can to recycle it or turn it into energy.

Otherwise, as the world’s top ocean plastic polluter, we may find our archipelago of 7,000 islands literally buried in trash — sooner than we could ever imagine.

*      *      *

Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.