Garbage dumps

The residents of Murcia near the town's boundary with Bacolod City's Barangay Felisa are complaining about the stench and smoke coming out of the city dumpsite in the barangay. They have filed a complaint with the city but the city's environment officials said that they have covered the site with soil “to stop the combustion caused by the methane gas”. This action is just adding more problems that will soon explode.

This only shows seeming helplessness in facing this problem, or worse, lack of study. As experience tells us, this problem will recur next year as it did the year before last but it appears that CENRO did not address this issue.

The stench and the smoke are created by methane gas, similar to that of your gas stove. It stinks and it burns. This gas is caused by decaying matter. Covering it only increases its production, not just from the weight that helps hasten its decomposition but from the heat that cannot escape. Gas, by its nature will have to get out. When it is contained, it will eventually burst out. The little cracks or openings will slowdown the process but when it can no longer be confined, gas will have to explode. The tiny outlets will stink and burn as we now see in Felisa.

Some years back I was invited to observe a power plant in New Jersey. The plant is fueled by garbage from all over the county. After seeing the operation, the staff treated me to lunch where we spent a considerable time talking about garbage as a power source. Let's put that matter for another time. The point at this stage is the dumpsite in Felisa.

Adjacent to the New Jersey power plant is a mound, about 2 or 3 thousand square meters. It is covered with green grass since it is a park with benches and lots of trees and with trees, birds. Parks surely attracted people from around the area which has become a commercial district. Parks close to business areas are nothing to be curious about but what struck me was a series of tubes stuck to the ground. I asked about these tubes and the staff told me they are for “breathing” of the mound which used to be a landfill.

Trapped methane gas of decades escape through these tubes and the trees and plants absorb their carbon dioxide. Thus the area does not smell but is even cool.

The power plant was constructed nearby because of the huge garbage from all over the county that are still being trucked there. Despite this there was no pollution. I passed my finger over the railings and got no dirt or smog whatsoever.

Some years earlier I attended a conference in Shanghai and met a Chinese official who planned to come to the Philippines to see the (in)famous Smokey Mountain in Tondo, Manila. When I came back, I informed the late General Arcadio Lozada of the interest of this man. The Chinaman came but I was unable to join them. General Lozada told me later that the man marveled that “we were burning millions worth of money”. The visitor called the garbage a mountain of gold.

The Chinese have invented a way of using garbage for a lot of things but the plan for Manila fizzled out because officials there wanted their “slice of the cake” and Lozada would have nothing to do with it. I could not bring it in Bacolod because the minimum volume of garbage needed was 300 tons daily and at the time we did not have that quantity of trash even if we got those of the nearby towns and cities that would make the project viable.

The dumpsite in Felisa is not a problem; it is a solution. There are systems that use garbage to draw money from it. In fact the system has been in use in the Philippines for years. Remember the tapping of hog and chicken dung for methane for the kitchen and lighting?

The DENR and the Department of Science and Technology can harness many operational systems to convert the Felisa stench into fuel and fertilizer. The government has models for the right kind of landfills that include those breathers. This is only for starters because the opportunities are many.

Councilor Carl Lopez, as head of the SP on this matter, can take the step beyond stopping the stench and the fires and create a viable economic enterprise that cleans the environment as well.*

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