Waste to Energy is a confusing concept because it sounds so good in theory but also has the potential to be a terrible thing if it is not done correctly.
On the positive note, how can you go wrong with turning waste into energy, right?
The waste that our towns and cities generate is a big problem, especially here in the Philippines where solid waste management (SWM) programs are mostly afterthoughts that usually resort to finding a contractor to schedule the indiscriminate collection of trash so residents don’t see or smell it piling up outside their homes, and the LGU dumps it somewhere far away enough to be forgotten by the voters.
If that waste problem can be turned into energy, and the solution helps prevent brownouts or lowers power bills, then that would be a great thing.
The problem with that problem is that turning waste into energy in a manner that produces the least negative side effects to the community and the environment is rarely a straightforward affair. Because if it were, everyone would already be doing it by now.
Unfortunately for human beings and their cities, every situation is different so there is no boilerplate solution that can be easily deployed and replicated. While there are places that have managed to make good use of WTE technologies, there are also others that have failed miserably. That unfortunately means that slapping the letters “WTE” on any program or solution does not guarantee any success or even just a net benefit, especially when incompetence and/or corruption manages to get involved, which is always a danger in this country.
There are many ways of turning waste to energy. The most straightforward is to burn or incinerate it to run a boiler that creates steam which is used to drive a turbine that generates electricity. Other technologies like pyrolysis or gasification use lower temperatures to break down materials like plastics into chemicals that can be used as fuel for generators. Those that are designed, implemented, and operated properly can create energy from waste with the least negative impact on the community and the environment. Those that are implemented haphazardly can end up doing more harm than good. In other words, the choice of technology and contractor matters, along with knowing the sustainability of the feedstock supply, which in this case is waste.
If we follow the law on SWM, our communities are supposed to reduce, reuse, and recycle all waste at the source, which means whatever makes it to the landfills should only be residual waste. The problem with residual waste is that it is not a good feedstock, which means that an efficiently implemented SWM program would result in an inefficient WTE power plant. In other words, if we would only do our job properly when it comes to trash, WTE would not be necessary.
The good news for WTE is that most Filipinos have failed our country and environment when it comes to trash. We simply dump all our unsorted trash outside our homes and wait for the garbage collectors to make it disappear. We are too lazy to sort trash and follow a collection schedule, so our local governments just pour millions upon millions of our taxes into garbage collection contracts that are volume-based, instead of investing in recycling, material recovery, and composting programs that would reduce the trash generated by our communities.
Given the quantity and quality of the waste that is dumped at the landfills, selling WTE as a solution does make sense, because there is surely an abundance of good quality waste there that can be turned into energy. In that case, the feedstock supply can be established as sustainable, because of governments that have no intention to reduce, reuse, and recycle at source.
However, even if the waste that can be turned into energy is abundant, there is still the issue of choosing the best available technology, along with the company that can design, build, and operate the supposedly good solution. This is where many WTE proposals and concepts get stuck, because everyone has a different idea of what is acceptable when we are talking about transforming tons of trash into electricity.
So, when a city proudly announces the monumental choice to take the WTE route, and has even already chosen a contractor, but has strangely not yet decided upon a technology, we cannot help but see red flags popping up. How can they choose a contractor or technology provider for a multi-billion peso project without even knowing what they are going to be building?
Given the wide range of technologies available for WTE solutions, shouldn’t a city start with fielding proposals from all the experts, and then choose the best fit for its situation, before filtering and retaining the services of a best available contractor or supplier that has a proven track record when it comes to the design, construction, and implementation of such projects?
If a WTE project is not planned, designed, and implemented properly, the community will end up with more waste than energy. This is why it cannot be rushed, and why the people who are going to be affected have to participate in or continually monitor the process.
This is one project where good intentions simply won’t be enough.*
