Your garbage may travel farther and to more exotic locales than you will ever see — but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
It’s not just e-waste or scrap metal that developed countries are shipping abroad, which would be bad enough. It is every repugnant, repulsive item or substance that we put out at the curb or into a dumpster without a thought about its final destination. Very often, our refuse is bound for a third-world country, where it will wreak havoc with local ecosystems and cultures.
Visual: True Green Energy Group’s Materials Recovery Facility in San Fernando, the Philippines
It's hard to gauge the overall environmental toll, but occasionally we hear horror stories, such as the 2006 case of the Dutch-registered tanker, the Probo Koala, which dumped hundreds of tons of toxic sludge at the Ivory Coast in Africa and had a contractor distribute it to 17 nearby sites, causing widespread disease and at least ten deaths.
Now in the City of San Fernando, in the Philippines, a regional industrial and shipping cente, the Pampanga–based True Green Energy Group, has opened a new Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) and begun Bio-Green System operations that will have a transformative effect. The facility will process raw garbage that otherwise would pollute the air and poison the water table and turn it into biomass pellets that can be burned to produce electricity.
The company’s pellets replace fossil fuel, thus, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and are easier to store because they are uniform in size and composition. They also are much cleaner to handle than charcoal or coal and generate less local air pollution.
The True Green Energy Group pellets are sold in 18-kilogram (40-pound) bags, which are filled using an overhead hopper and conveyor-belt arrangement. Each of the TGEG bags is clearly labeled with the type of pellet, as well as its grade (i.e., premium or standard), and heat content.
One ton of biomass pellets made by True Green Energy Group can be sold for approximately $165. For every ton produced, the landfill site in San Fernando will be cleared of 300 to 1000 tons of garbage per day.
What’s more, TGEG has a major advantage in that that the resources the company uses to produce the pellets come free-of-charge. Nobody wants to put a price on the garbage at the landfills. Today, TGEG has millions and millions of metric tons of garbage “at its disposal,” while the world has billions of metric tons in reserve buried in landfills all over the planet just waiting to be harvested by the TGEG team.
Pellets and briquettes have been used as fuel for many years in Europe and the United States, mainly on remote farms. However, since 2000, there has been a rapid uptick in the production and use of pellets — particularly in Sweden, Germany and Austria — because they can be used in automated boilers for space heating. An estimated five million tons of biomass pellets were used in Europe in 2010, some which had to be imported from North America. Even in the United Kingdom the demand for and supply of pellets is increasing.
Founder and Chairman of TGEG Ronald Flynn commented, "There is plenty of garbage on this planet; in fact there is so much garbage that many developed countries are trying to dump their garbage on the lands of lesser-developed countries—at a fee, of course. But does dumping garbage on other places solve the problem? On the contrary, it spreads pollutions and diseases that have hurt planet Earth and future generations."
TGEG CEO Renato W. Lee III said, "True green energy pellets burn like coal, but without the harmful side effects of carbon dioxide. With great technology such as this, we can truly make a difference in the world and not only reduce the trash already out there, but turn it into fuel and energy."
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Cheryl Kaften is an accomplished communicator who has written for consumer and corporate audiences. She has worked extensively for MasterCard (News - Alert) Worldwide, Philip Morris USA (Altria), and KPMG, and has consulted for Estee Lauder and the Philadelphia Inquirer Newspapers. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Rich Steeves
