Editor’s Desk
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Let’s talk about the bad news first, which the media has been covering extensively: first, the tragic landfill collapse in Cebu that took the lives of at least 36 people, and second, the termination of Solar Philippines Power Project Holdings’ contracts and its hefty PHP 24 billion fine.
Off the back of these two big events, we’re watching the conversation evolve into the attempt to determine which is the lesser evil: rushed waste-to-energy facilities or mismanaged sanitary landfills? DOE continues to push for renewable energy regardless of the answer. Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said recently that DOE is gearing up for another wave of renewable energy auctions to replace nearly 18 gigawatts of stalled projects.
We will leave weighing solutions to the experts (if you are one of them and would like to chime in, please email us). But we find it interesting that in the Philippines, this pattern emerges quite often: a quick fix prescribed on top of a problem caused by a quick fix.
The good news is that while monitoring these news cycles, we saw more and more people saying that this pattern just isn’t good enough anymore. That we need to assess the system as a whole.
This week, allow us to feature a couple of stories from our trip to Taipei for the Asia-Pacific Circular Economy Roundtable. Back in the year 1989, widely described as Taiwan’s “Garbage Island” era, the country’s waste management system was completely overwhelmed. Jump 27 years into the present: Taiwan’s green technology industry contributes 2 percent to the national GDP. In this article, writer Denise Gonsalves talks about the work of Tzu Chi Neihu Recycling Center, which was actually built on a former landfill.
We hope this look at what it takes to play a long game that spans decades gets you through another week.
— The Editors
What Taiwan's ‘Garbage Island’ era can teach the Philippines
How does a plastic bottle in Taipei end up warming a typhoon survivor in Tacloban? With a truly circular system, anything is possible.
The mindset shift needed for a Circular Economy
Can the Philippines progress towards a circular economy with imperfect policies in place? Taiwan's leading circularity advocate weighs in.
Explainer: Why is DOE pushing for a waste-to-energy exemption?
Environmental groups caution that waste-to-energy facilities are not zero-waste.
More at a glance
On our radar: This report by World Bank that assesses the readiness of the Philippines’ for EPR policy implementation, Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities’ energy transition adviser Alberto Dalusing III on the ‘historic’ gas find in Malampaya, Cebu’s government officials taking stances on WTE
Other stories from Sustina Earth:
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