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A UNITED
Nations-assisted project, which aims to rid the
country’s polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs) in equipment
and waste, kicked off recently with public and private
stakeholders taking part in a one-day inception workshop
at the Sulô Hotel in
Quezon City.
The
workshop aims to explore the project’s implementation,
including the bid process specifics, identification of
the company or technology provider that has the capacity
to provide technical assistance to the project’s
implementing agency.
Julian
Amador, chief of the Environment Management Bureau of
the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR),
who was the program’s guest of honor, lauded the United
Nations Industrial Development Organization (Unido) for
assisting the Philippine government in its
capacity-building to dispose PCBs, one of the persistent
organic pollutants (POPs) identified in the Stockholm
Convention.
“This
initiative will hopefully help us safely deal with the
toxic legacies associated with the past use of
persistent organic pollutants in the country. The
intention to use nonburn systems to dispose of these
pollutants shows clearly that there are safer
alternatives to waste incineration,” said Von Hernandez,
executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia and also
Steering Committee member of the Global Alliance for
Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) said.
“The
solution to the problem of toxic and hazardous waste,
however, ultimately lies in the implementation of clean
production in the industrial sector,” he said.
Greenpeace and GAIA are the private-sector partners of
the project.
Mohamed
Eisa, Unido project manager, said in the next few months
technology providers will be asked to stage a technology
demonstration in the Philippines as part of the process
to identify potential project partners.
The
noncombustion technology is being eyed as the only
viable solution to the problem posed by the need to
dispose the toxic PCBs in transformers and capacitors.
Its very transfer is a risk to environment and the
safety of those handling the toxic substance.
The
project proponents has identified the area where a plant
for the noncombustion technology will be put
up—specifically at the Industrial Park of the
Alternative Fuels Corp. (AFC), a corporate arm of the
DENR located in Mariveles, Bataan.
A
4,000-hectare lot within the park has been allotted for
the purpose, according to Stefan Pano,
AFC Industrial Park
manager.
The
$11.8-million project is part of the program dubbed
“Global program to demonstrate the viability and removal
of barriers that impede adoption and successful
implementation of available noncombustion technologies
for destroying persistent organic pollutants in the
Philippines.”
The
project is financed through the Global Environment
Facility, with counterpart support in cash and in kind
from the United Nations, the government and the private
and public sectors. |
