[ manilastandardtoday.com ] July 26, 2008
By Gigi Muñoz David
With the methane power plant in Rodriguez, Rizal, Mayor Pedro Cuerpo called on the Metro Manila Development Authority to haul in more solid waste to the municipality.
“For the first time in Philippine history, a sanitary landfill will be a major player among independent power producers and a model for pollution-reduction development projects in Asia,” he said.
Cuerpo estimates that MMDA brings in around 2,000 tons of garbage daily.
“We encourage them to dump more as MMDA is saying that Metro Manila has around 8,000 metric tons to dump daily then we are willing to accommodate that volume of trash.”
He likewise reiterated his 40-percent discount on tipping fee owing to the town’s methane-recovery waste-to-energy project.
Each dump truck will pay only P360 from the P600 per metric ton, according to Cuerpo.
The discount, he says, translates to an annual savings of P700 million for MMDA which can be used for urban renewal, including the cleaning up of creeks, esteros and rivers; landscaping and beautification drives as well as the more efficient collection of garbage.
“We will recoup the 40-percent discount from our recovery of recyclables, such as plastic, bottles, paper products through more cost-effective direct administration of the landfill and through earnings from the methane-fed power plant.”
President Arroyo attended the launching of the Montalban methane power plant in Rodriguez.
The Montalban methane power plant was designed to harvest landfill gas particularly methane from the Montalban Solid Waste Disposal Sanitary Landfill to produce electricity enough to light up 15,000 households.
The power plant is expected to generate nine to 19 megawatts over a period of 10 years starting this month.
It is a P1.65-billion build-own-operate project of the Montalban Methane Power Corp.
The power plant qualifies as an emission-curbing project under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism and likewise assures the country of at least 500,000 certified emission reductions or “carbon credits” through its methane recovery operation.
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