By Bobbit Mariano
04/02/2008 [ tribune.net.ph ]
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has earmarked a total of $11 million for a project that aims to protect people’s health and environment from “chemical substances that persist in the environment,” the EcoWaste Coalition, one of the Manila-based non-government organizations disclosed yesterday.
In a brief information sent to the Tribune, EcoWaste said the project, which took almost five years to develop and secure a final approval from GEF last October 2007, is part of a global program that will demonstrate the viability of commercially-available non-combustion technologies for the destruction of obsolete stockpiles of persistent organic pollutants.
The deployment of a non-combustion technology to address some 1,500 tons of extremely toxic industrial chemical compounds called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) wastes is the immediate goal of the project which was supported by the United Nations (UN), Ecowaste said.
Based on current inventories, the Philippines has 6,879 tons of PCBs-containing equipment and wastes containing about 2,400 tons of PCBs oil. It was noted that Manila Electric Co., National Power Corp. and National Transmission Co. are the main owners of the inventoried transformers and capacitors with PCBs or industrial wastes.
This developed as leading companies in the power sector have thrown support behind the UN-assisted project using a commercially-available and proven non-combustion technology.
The strategic support from the concerned business entities will help the Philippines eliminate environmental pollutants in compliance with its obligations under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, Manny Calonzo of the EcoWaste Coalition and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives said.
The project cost is also being financed by the Philippine government, contributing a total of $500,000 and $650,000 from United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
The implementing agency for the project is the UNIDO while Department of Environment and Natural Resources Environmental Management Bureau acts as the project’s national executing agency.
________________________________________________________________
