Velasco urges Senate to pass waste-to-energy bill

Speaker Lord Allan Velasco on Thursday urged the Senate to approve the measure seeking to allow the use of waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies to address the perennial garbage problem in the country.

In a statement, Velasco, who previously served as chair of the House Committee on Energy, said the government should now consider adopting WTE technologies in the treatment and disposal of solid waste especially that many of the landfills in the country will soon be filled up.

“The huge amount of waste that we produce threatens to overwhelm our landfills and create worse garbage disposal problems,” Velasco said.

"Before this happens, we must now look for cleaner and more sustainable methods to treat and dispose of solid waste, such as WTE," he added.

Velasco said WTE technologies convert waste into energy which minimizes the amount of trash sent to landfills, thereby reducing its negative impact to the surrounding environment.

“WTE facilities provide a safe, technologically advanced means of waste disposal that reduces greenhouse gases and generates clean energy,” he said.

Velasco also said that WTE has been known to help mitigate climate change as the waste combusted at a WTE facility does not produce methane.

The electricity produced from a WTE facility, he added, offsets the greenhouse gases that are generated from coal and natural gas plants.

The House of Representatives has recently passed on third and final reading House Bill 7829, or the proposed "Waste Treatment Technology Act," with Velasco as one of the principal authors.

The measure allows the use of any WTE technology, including incineration, so long as it does not produce poisonous or toxic fumes.

It also amends RA 8749 or the Clean Air Act of 1999 by repealing Section 20 of the law to allow the use of incineration for WTE purposes.

Once enacted into law, the measure will regulate WTE facilities to ensure that they are fitted with the equipment that will continuously monitor, record, and make publicly available the reported data on their emissions or air pollutant concentrations.

A counterpart measure is currently pending on second reading, authored and sponsored by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian. — BM, GMA News