MEZ facility to treat hazardous waste of 200 firms, hospitals

A HAZARDOUS and hospital waste treatment facility is set for construction this month inside the Mactan Economic Zone (MEZ) 1.

This P150 million state-of-the-art investment will cater to all waste being produced at the Mactan Economic Zone (MEZ) and hospital waste in Cebu province.

The embedded facility in MEZ 1 will lower the cost of the locators on their waste disposal and treatment fees and more importantly, enhance their compliance with environmental laws.

Hazardous waste is waste that has substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment.

State-run Development Bank of the Philippines, in an agreement with Pacific Mactan Renewable Environmental Systems Inc. (PMRESI), will provide 70 percent of the funding while the latter will shoulder the 30 percent equity. The loan from the DBP will be amortized over seven years.

PMRESI is the local counterpart of Canada-based Eneco WTE Pacific Inc., the technology provider. Eneco pioneered the entry of Tops in the Philippines.

PMRESI will construct, manage and operate the treatment facility whose construction will start this month and will be completed this September.

The 2,000-square-meter treatment facility will feature a containerized Thermal Oxidation Process System (Tops) that uses the thermal gasification/oxidation process to decompose carbon-based components of waste and reduce its volume by 97 percent.

Once fully operational, the facility can accommodate up to 15 tons per day of industrial, hazardous waste, and even hospital waste. This project will be the sole treatment, storage and disposal facility inside MEZ 1.

“With this innovative project, MEZ locators will no longer have to dispose of their hazardous waste on their own, which marks the commencement of a smart waste management and energy recovery system for the locators. This is in support of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority’s greening of ecozones program, reinforcing enhancement of the locators’ compliance to environmental laws,” said Jesus Jayme Jr., president of PMRESI.

At present, hazardous wastes of MEZ locators are collected and treated by non-MEZ third-party companies. Locators pay these companies every time they get in and out of the ecozone, among other fees.

Tops has been widely used in Canada and the United States of America, meeting both USA and European emissions regulations. These containerized oxidizers are used by organizations including British Petroleum, Shell, all divisions of the US Armed Forces, and healthcare facilities such as Washington Medical University and Michigan State University.

PMRESI will charge locators and nearby hospitals that will use the facility a tipping fee. MEZ 1 and 2, combined, have about 200 locators.

In 2019, hospital waste was reported floating along the Mactan Channel, placing the shorelines at risk. According to a SunStar Cebu report, the Environmental Management Bureau in Central Visayas (EMB 7) slapped Davao City Environmental Care Inc. (DCECI) and a private hospital in Cebu with a fine of P250,000 and P110,000, respectively, for illegally throwing medical waste into the sea.

The EMB 7 concluded that DCECI directly threw the medical waste into the Mactan Channel because these were still fresh and did not go through indirect heating when discovered.