ENVIRONMENTALISTS warned against waste-to-energy (WTE) plants in the Philippines claiming these have negative economic, environmental, and health effects.
Jorge Emmanuel, former United Nations (UN) Chief–technical advisor on environmental concerns, insisted Monday, December 5, at Kapehan at Dabaw that the Philippines is not yet ready for waste-to-energy plants.
According to him, these plants emit the most dangerous toxins known to science called dioxin. This cancer-causing chemical is very toxic that a drop in a lake can actually cause harmful effects to people who will eat the fish from the said lake. Moreover it causes birth defect and dysfunction of the ovaries among others.
He added studies conducted showed that men whose mothers were exposed with dioxins during pregnancy tend to have smaller genitals than average.
Dioxins were also proven to decrease IQ of developing children.
Emmanuel said the most alarming about dioxins is its effect can last up to 40 generations and it cannot be eradicated by simple burning and/or burying.
Technologies that offer to clean up dioxins in the air will not completely clean them up, instead they will be converted to ashes or filth but the toxic compound is still existent.
According to Emmanuel, a special landfill should be allocated for it. A regular landfill only allows spreading of the dioxins in the air from the ashes or the filth. This in turn, will cost the Philippines a lot of money and will continue to affect the health of the people.
Moreover, he said with his former position at UN, he learned that Japan, United States of America (USA), Canada, and other European countries had been selling waste-to-energy technologies to developing countries at a lower cost.
According to Emmanuel, most of these technologies had been banned and did not pass the global standard of dioxin level which is only .1 nanogram/ per cubic meter (ng/m3) and was recently reduced to .01 ng/m3. Japan sells WTE technology with 5 ng/m3 dioxin level.
The developing countries, including the Philippines, accept purchase of such technologies without further tests, trusting the test results presented by the selling country.
According to Emmanuel, they did continuous testing, at least four times a year, of these technologies back in Belgium and discovered that with specific transient periods, dioxin level increases together with the decrease in the temperature.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources would only allow once a year testing due to its very high cost per testing. The government may not afford such continuous testing and this would be very dangerous according to Emmanuel.
Emmanuel still believed the Philippines is not yet ready to implement Waste-to-Energy technology in the country especially that we do not have enough budget and resources to counter all the negative effects that dioxin would possibly bring.