BAGUIO CITY – A United States-based waste disposal company is now studying the city’s waste disposal system for it to come out with the recommendations on the appropriate solutions that can be adopted.
City General Services officer Romeo D. Concio said the proponents want to introduce the anaerobic digester as one possible solutions to the city’s waste disposal system, thus, the company officials and technical people studying the current state of our garbage before they will make their recommendations.
“The interested US-based proponent will be introducing a German anaerobic technology being used in California and we asked them to fastrack the formulation of their report and submit it to the inter-agency committee as the private partner of Benguet Corporation (BC) is about to select the technology provider for the Antamok waste-to-energy facility,” Concio stressed.
He explained the 24 technology providers have already been shortlisted to only 8 proponents but it could be further reduced to 4 depending on the assessment of the inter-agency committee tasked to evaluate all the pending proposals for the operation of a world-class waste-to-energy facility at the Antamok open pit site in Itogon town.
The inter-agency committee tasked to review the most feasible and environmentally-acceptable waste disposal technology is composed of representatives from relevant departments of the Baguio City government, Itogon municipal government, BC, Cordillera office of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB-CAR), the private developer Goldrich Natural Exploration and Development Corporation, the concerned barangays of Itogon, among others.
Concio claimed the proposal of the US-based company once completed will be included in the inter-agency committee’s evaluation and assessment of which among the pending proponents will be able to satisfy the requirements of the developer.
BC offered the use of its Antamok open pit as potential site a waste-to-energy plant capable of converting the city’s waste into renewable energy which could be sold to the grid.
Initially, Concio revealed one of the strategies being studied by the inter-agency committee is allotting a small residual containment area in the open pit for the city’s residual waste instead of incurring hauling expenses of the same to the sanitary landfill in Tarlac even before a suitable technology for the waste-to-energy plant is put up on the site.
It will be recalled that the inter-agency committee already abandoned the plan for an engineered sanitary landfill in the Antamok open site because of the huge expense needed and long duration for its completion thus the option to pursue the put up of the waste-to-energy plant./By Dexter A. See
