By Ashley Manabat - May 8, 2018
CAPAS, Tarlac—The Metro Clark Waste
Management Corp. (MCWMC) is planning to acquire a facility that will convert
waste into electricity at its sanitary landfill in Barangay Kalangitan.
In a news briefing after a site
inspection here last Thursday, MCWMC noted that the number of cities and
municipalities dumping their garbage into the landfill, which has been in
operation since 2002, continues to multiply.
“We hope we can develop this task in
the next two to three years, but it needs another three years, to completely
develop such a facility to be in operation,” said Holger H. Holst, a German
engineer that is overseeing the operations of the MCWMC as its managing
director.
But Rufo Colayco, MCWMC president
and CEO, said the company needs to settle first some “regulatory issues with
the government” before it can set up such a facility.
Colayco said MCWMC is now servicing
90 municipalities excluding big companies in its present 100-hectare facility, of
which 70 hectares serve as landfill and 30 hectares as buffer zone.
He said MCWMC is now working on a
17-hectare cell, which costs P120 million.
“In the very early stages, we were
buying used equipment in Subic, but now we are buying brand-new equipment. It’s
more expansive but more reliable,” Colayco said.
He said MCWMC has also acquired the
biggest waste compactor in the Philippines, which costs P22 million.
“You know the difference, before
careless truck drivers get mired in the wet garbage because their trucks
straddle one side, which is soft, and one side on the road, which is
denser. We had some serious damage with trucks toppling over,” Colayco said
gesturing with his hands.
“Now with the compactor, the garbage
is so solid, it’s hard and that also lengthens the life of the landfill because
you can pack in more garbage,” he explained.
No road
But Colayco lamented the failure of
Clark Development Corp. to pave the Capas road. “But even if they had done
that, we would probably still build our own road.”
“The issue would be one of safety
and inconvenience on the part of the townsfolk as more and more trailers and
trucks carrying garbage continue to pass. You can imagine how annoying it can
be for the townsfolk,” Colayco said.
“And from our view point, we don’t
want to have to deal with a child having been hit by a truck, that sort of
thing. It’s much better for us to have our own private road,” he explained.
“But that would cost easily several hundred millions,” he added.
Colayco said the private road will
be constructed from MacArthur Highway to the MCWMC site.
“Fortunately the BCDA [Bases
Conversion and Development Authority] is now building an exit at
Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway [SCTEx] which will end up at MacArthur Highway,
which is very near where our road will start. So, hopefully, in the future, we
will have a better ability to acquire a much larger tonnage from places like
Metro Manila,” he said.
Holst said the tipping fee (now at
P600 to P800 per ton) will not go up if the planned road upgrade and
power-plant acquisition will be realized even if the investment in the power
plant will be around $200 million because “with the generation of power, you
gain a lot of money.”
But Holst added, “It’s not a cheap
power. You need the waste- management fees to, at the end of the day, subsidize
the power plant to run it.”
Holst explained that the costs for
waste management disappear, that’s the green virtues, but it’s technically
impossible. It’s an investment that you need very clear conditions to start it.”
The sanitary landfill here is part
of the more than 30,000-hectare Clark special economic zone where 9,500
hectares is being developed as the New Clark City.
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