BATANGAS CITY – Local waste management firm Macaraig Group of Companies (MGC) through its subsidiaries, BlueEnviron Material Recovery Inc. and Wastecon Inc., inaugurated a P200- million automated material recovery facility (MRF) here yesterday.
The company said the facility located in Sitio Catmon, Barangay San Jose is part of a five-year pipeline of MRFs, sanitary landfills and sewage treatment plants eyed to be built nationwide for a total project cost of P13.2 billion.
The facility is considered one of the largest MRFs in the Philippines with a capacity to automatically sort municipal waste of up to 25 tons per hour or 400 tons per day for only 16 hours of work.
MGC said the MRF will enhance the recyclable waste processing capacity of the entire Batangas and other provinces as the facility will house a machine capable of receiving, sorting, processing and storing compostable and recyclable materials.
Examples of compostable materials include food scraps, vegetable and fruit peels as well as yard waste like leaves and twigs while recyclable materials include plastics, paper products, glass bottles and metal containers.
“This MRF is the first in our five-year, P13.2 billion waste management pipeline project that we are introducing nationwide. We believe that with the launch of this automated MRF, we can finally put an end to open dumpsites, help prolong the lifespan of sanitary landfills and open new ways in recovering waste that will lead to zero waste in the future,” said Allen Macaraig, MGC chairman, in a statement.
Macaraig said waste sorting is still largely done manually which is already considered as an “outdated process” as it results in “inefficiency, inaccuracy and inconsistency in segregation of waste, poses a high safety and health risk to MRF workers and there is a low recovery tons per day (TPD) rate of materials that usually end up in landfills.”
In a separate interview with reporters, Macaraig said the facility will mainly recover its investments from tipping fees as well as from the sale of recyclable materials that will be processed.
Macaraig added after the Sitio Catmon MRF, MGC has already lined up other waste management projects in Laguna and in Lian, Batangas which is still part of the P13.2 billion, five-year pipeline, among other projects that will be scattered in the entire country.
“We have plans to establish all over the country and coordinate with the national government especially with the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) and EMB (Environmental Management Bureau),” Macaraig said.
