LAOAC, Pangasinan -- The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)

regional office is now evaluating a waste-to-energy project proposed for Laoac town by Rublu
Group of Companies, a consortium of Filipino, Indian, South Korean and Chinese companies.

Laoac Mayor Silverio Alarcio Jr., president of the Pangasinan Mayors' League (PML), on Monday
said the project would turn wastes into electric energy that could be used to energize homes as
well as factories.

If finally developed, Laoac would be the first town in Pangasinan to make use of this technology,
which Alarcio said was different from the “waste to worth” project set to be built in Dagupan that
would process garbage into diesel fuel.

He said that proposed project in Laoac was an incineration-type project in which the wastes that
would be collected from homes, would be burned to heat a boiler up to a maximum of 2,000
degrees centigrade.

The process will produce steam that will turn turbines which will in turn produce electric energy,
the mayor added. After the burning process, the ashes can be used as landfill for low-lying areas.

Officials of Rublu came to Laoac and offered the technology being used in advanced countries
like South Korea, Singapore and Japan to get rid of their wastes.

The company already brought Alarcio and other town officials to South Korea for an ocular
inspection of waste to energy projects and were briefed on the operational systems.

When informed that the project may suffer rough sailing in the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources (DENR) which frowns on incineration, the mayor asked: "Why are advanced
countries still using this technology if it really is destructive to the environment?”

"If South Korea, Singapore and Japan are now using this technology, why can't we use the same
in our country in order to get rid of our own wastes where we have run out of place to safely
dispose our wastes?" he added.

Alarcio believes that coal plants, which the country now has several of, are more hazardous than
the incineration-type project.

"Incineration is banned in the Clean Air Act but if you incinerate for the purpose of creating a
useful energy such as electricity, this may be allowed, he said, adding that burning wastes at
2,000 degrees centigrade would already get rid of many toxic wastes.

Alarcio said the technology could solve the mounting garbage problem of the country and at this
stage, "we don't seem to know what we will do with our wastes". (PNA)
Korea waste:

South Korea has a highly organised waste management system known as jongnyangje. Waste
disposal and recycling policy is set by the Ministry of Environment, and garbage collection is
organised at a municipal level. Household food waste, recyclables, non-recyclables and large
objects are disposed of separately. Following this system is mandatory: here are penalty charges
for non-compliance, and also rewards for reporting non-compliance.
There is no direct fee for garbage collection: funding comes from the sale of garbage bags that
are colour-coded by waste category and usable in only one district. Colour-coding varies
between districts, and collectors will not accept non-standard bags.
Disposal is typically centralised in large buildings. Most will have a waste disposal area,
communal bins and a caretaker whose responsibility it is to supervise waste disposal. If no waste
disposal area or caretaker is present, garbage bags can only be left outside the house between
certain hours on the designated day. These are usually between late evening and early morning.
The four separate categories of waste in South Korea are:

 Landfill waste
 Organic waste
 Recyclables
 Large waste objects

Organic waste should be dried out before disposal. In general, organic waste constitutes
anything that could be fed to livestock. Objects such as fruit stones, bones, nutshells and
teabags should be placed in the landfill container.
Paper, glass, steel, fabrics and plastics are recycled in South Korea, though recycling
arrangements vary from place to place. Recycling must always be separated into types and
compressed or flattened before disposal. In large buildings, recyclables must be separated into
specific communal bins.
Large waste objects, such as bicycles and televisions, will be collected if left in the general
collection area with the correct large object disposal sticker attached to them. Large object
disposal stickers of different types can be bought at district offices.
 Energy from municipal solid waste

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Municipal solid waste (MSW), often called garbage, is used to produce energy at waste-to-energy
plants and at landfills in the United States. MSW contains

 biomass, or biogenic (plant or animal products), materials such as paper, cardboard, food waste,
grass clippings, leaves, wood, and leather products
 nonbiomass combustible materials such as plastics and other synthetic materials made from
petroleum
 noncombustible materials such as glass and metals

Click to enlarge »

In 2015, about 262 million tons of MSW were generated in the United States, of which
 52.5% was landfilled
 25.8% was recycled
 12.8% was burned with energy recovery
 8.9% was composted

Waste-to-energy plants make steam and electricity

MSW is usually burned at special waste-to-energy plants that use the heat from the fire to make
steam for generating electricity or to heat buildings. In 2016, 71 U.S. power plants generated about 14
billion kilowatthours of electricity from burning about 30 million tons of combustible MSW. Biomass
materials accounted for about 64% of the weight of the combustible MSW and for about 51% of the
electricity generated. The remainder of the combustible MSW was nonbiomass combustible material,
mainly plastics. Many large landfills also generate electricity by using the methane gas that is
produced from decomposing biomass in landfills.

Waste-to-energy is a waste management option

Producing electricity is only one reason to burn MSW. Burning waste also reduces the amount of
material that would probably be buried in landfills. Burning MSW reduces the volume of waste by
about 87%.

How waste-to-energy plants work

Waste-to-energy plants burn municipal solid waste (MSW), often called garbage or trash, to produce
steam in a boiler that is used to generate electricity.

There are different types of waste-to-energy systems or technologies. The most common type used in
the United States is the mass-burn system, where unprocessed MSW is burned in a large incinerator
with a boiler and a generator for producing electricity (see illustration below). Another less common
type of system processes MSW into fuel pellets that can be used in smaller power plants.