The Philippine's Clean Air Act Paradox: We End Up with Bad Air Anyway

Before you bear down on me, please read through this brainstorming I had a few days ago. (Well, you know I have a lot of time in my hands these days.)  I believe this is an important issue that should be tackled and not simply whisked away as another anti-environmentalist rant. Because this is not; this is anything but that. So here goes...

The Clean Air Act is a landmark law that, among other things, basically bans the use of incinerators in the Philippines, the first country to do so. However, without incinerators, what are we going to do with all that trash?

Aside from recycling -- which many people don't do anyway -- the most common answer would be landfills -- what little land we have left will be used just to make way for the tons of trash from Metro Manila. And that's just where most of our trash ends up. Nobody likes landfills, especially the people who are forced to live next to them. The Payatas incident back in early 2000 is a good reminder of that -- and that they are not environmentally friendly. Is there really a doubt why people are complaining when they learn that they will be neighbors of a very large landfill?

Anyway, as far as I understand, millions of pesos are spent to have large tracts of land across the nation used as landfills, such as the San Jose Del Monte site just outside Metro Manila and the recently opened site in Pangasinan. All those tons of trash produces methane -- a large amount in fact that it can be used as a source of power but, unfortunately is a very potent greenhouse gas. Methane has a global warming potential (GWP) of 30 -- which means that every kilogram of methane has 30x more effect on climate change than carbon dioxide [1].



Imagine. In ten years or so, every region of the Philippines has at least one landfill. Each of those landfills release large amounts of methane. Not to mention, the not-so-pleasant smell for everyone living on the outskirts of those landfills. So unless we are planning on harvesting all of that methane through biomass facilities, it's just waste. The kind of waste that severly impacts the atmosphere and cause climate change.

And here's another twist to the story. A big chunk of the total power generated in the Philippines comes from coal-fired powered plants [2]. While there's no doubt that incinerators release greenhouse and toxic gases such as dioxin, research done by the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nucelar Safety (Germany) concluded that the modern incinerators -- those fitted with filters -- release significantly lower toxic materials (less than 1 percent) than other "large firing installations" such as coal-powered factories/plants [3].

How's that for irony...

And here's another inspiration from Discovery Channel. In Singapore, waste management is mainly recycling + powerplant/incinerators. That's the city's waste powering the city itself. Then, the incinerator's ash is shipped to an environment-friendly landfill. "Landfill" is a bit of a stretch, since it is actually on water. In time, there would be enough ash to make a reclaimed island.

Heck, Philippines was the lord of reclamations at one time. Most of the land next to Roxas Blvd used to be just water. We should be able to do this just fine! And it's easier. No need to bring land from the inland to the sea; we just need the ash from burnt waste that powered your electric fan a few days ago! We have so many trash, we can do this in no time! So not only do we resolve the trash and power problem, given enough time, we will have new real-estate as well.

So far, I really don't see any downside with incinerators that was not already there in the first place. Landfills are only a short-term/temporary solution. Personally, I wouldn't even call it a solution at all. Modern incinerators exist that help in several ways: waste management, power production, and, if we play our cards right, creating more real-estate. The air pollution it causes is nothing worse than what the existing coal-fired power plants and other factories are already spewing out in the atmosphere. In spite of this, I doubt incinerators will be in the Philippines anytime soon, if at all.

I just hope that a better solution -- if it exists -- will be done soon. Otherwise, we just end up looking for the next landfill to fill. Who would want to live in a place like that?