Rizal's $33-M methane power plant a 'band-aid solution' – green group

MANILA, Philippines - The $33-million power plant run by landfill-produced methane is a "band-aid solution" to greenhouse gas emissions that will only encourage dumping of more garbage, according to the Ecological Waste Coalition (EcoWaste). "If the government is sincere in cutting greenhouse gas emissions from dumps, it must keep all biodegradable materials out of dumps and push for innovative zero-waste programs nationwide,” Romy Hidalgo, secretary of EcoWaste, said in a statement issued on Thursday. The facility – the Montalban Landfill Methane Recovery and Electricity Generation Project – is in Rodriguez (formerly Montalban), Rizal. It was inaugurated on Thursday by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who endorsed it as a "model solution" to climate change and renewable energy source. But Hidalgo disagreed, saying: "With the push for the so-called 'energy from waste,' we see no end to dumping since there is now a purported use for landfills. This will not encourage our society to aim and work for zero waste." According to EcoWaste, methane comes from dumping, a destructive way to manage garbage. So landfill-gas-to-energy (LFGTE) power cannot be deemed a renewable energy source. Alternatives ways to manage trash The best way to cut the release of methane into the atmosphere is to ban the disposal of biodegradable or organic matters in dump sites, EcoWaste said. EcoWaste believed that the methane gas power plant was built to justify the existence of what it called "the illegal glorified Rodriguez dump site." It lamented that the project would only encourage hauling of more garbage. The president of the Bangon Kalikasan Movement, Joey Papa, suggested some alternatives to dumping. "We don’t need to spend a treasure for waste management," Papa said. "The people and the community can manage their own discards by using the inexpensive proven method of waste prevention, segregation, recycling, and composting – the ecological way of managing wastes." Manny Calonzo, of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), pointed out that the LFGTE technology feeds on a wasteful pattern of disposing organic materials into the dump sites. These organic materials could be better used by composting them into effective and safe soil nutrients that can help restore depleted farmlands. They would also keep farmers from being dependent on chemical farm products, such as toxic pesticides. Nonproductive approach Calonzo urged the government to embrace a zero-waste policy so that there would be less garbage that would emit methane in landfills. "Methane is a global warming gas that has 23 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide," Calonzo said. "In the United States, landfills are largest sources of methane emissions, with those from municipal waste landfills comprising 94 percent of total landfill emissions, while industrial landfills made up the rest." EcoWaste claimed that LFGTE systems do not necessarily prevent substantial discharge of methane due to inbuilt inefficiencies in the systems to capture all the methane produced. The group cited a paper by Peter Anderson, a US-based zero-waste advocate, who considererd LFGTE a "a nonproductive approach that fails to overcome the fact that, especially in a world concerned with climate change, land disposal alone – of all the other options to manage discards – creates the enormous volumes of methane that are among the most significant contributors to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions." Thus, the EcoWaste said that the promise of electricity from the methane gas collection should not deceive communities already serving as garbage dump sites or those being eyed as new dump sites. - GMANews.TV