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EcoWaste tells environmentalists to avoid waste-to-energy incineration technology
Anti-toxic waste campaigners advised against nascent waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration technologies in a multi-stakeholder forum convened by the Quezon City-based EcoWaste Coalition on Tuesday.
Instead, they advised the fifty participants from local government units, national government agencies, and civil society groups during the environmental forum to support low-cost, ecological, and sustainable non-burn alternatives that will accelerate the full implementation of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act (RA 9003) and the Clean Air Act (RA 8749).
Both laws exclude incineration as a viable waste management mechanism. Section 20 of the Clean Air Act defines a ban on incineration altogether, saying that "the burning of municipal, biomedical and hazardous waste, which process emits poisonous and toxic fumes, is hereby prohibited.
"Incinerating discards turns valuable resources into hazardous ash and smoke, poisoning communities near and afar with pollutants that are difficult and expensive to deal with," Aileen Lucero, National Coordinator of the EcoWaste Coalition, said in a statement Wednesday.
"The combustion process releases a range of harmful chemical byproducts depending on the makeup of materials burned," Lucero added.
Burning chlorinated materials, for instance, generates toxic substances, including confirmed carcinogens such as dioxins and furans. Waste incineration also discharges toxic metals such as cadmium, lead and mercury, as well as greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, which contribute to climate change, she explained.
Lucero cited House Bill 3161, introduced by Caloocan 2nd District Rep. Edgar Erice, which seeks to amend Section 20 of the Clean Air Act to allow the use of incinerators to burn municipal, bio-medical and hazardous wastes in light of the country’s garbage disposal problems.
Lee Bell, a visiting toxics policy expert from Australia said it would be "a backward step to reverse these laws (RA 9003 and RA 8749).
"Communities and governments around the world regard the incineration ban as a progressive policy which gives your country a chance to leap-frog expensive and polluting incinerator technologies and move toward zero waste practices and a sustainable society," Bell added .
WTE is a way to generate energy through electricity or heat by combustion of organic substances in waste materials. Many European countries and the United States are using WTE technologies to reduce landfills and produce energy at the same time.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), however, does not equate WTE to incineration. The agency defines WTE or energy recovery as "the conversion of non-recyclable waste materials into useable heat, electricity, or fuel through a variety of processes, including combustion, gasification, pyrolization, anaerobic digestion, and landfill gas (LFG) recovery."
The US EPA ranks WTE or Energy Recovery as the third most preferred waste management method in a list of four.
There are currently 86 facilities in the US for combustion of municipal solid waste and energy recovery. These have the capacity to produce 2,720 megawatts of power per year by processing more than 28 million tons of waste, according to the the US EPA.
However, no new plants have been built in the US since 1995. – Kim Luces/VS, GMA News
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