Prime Integrated Waste Solutions Inc. (PWS), a subsidiary of Razon-led Prime Infrastructure Capital, has advanced into operational phase the country’s first automated materials recovery facility (MRF) sited in Cebu that will be utilized for strategic waste management as well as storage, prior to their conversion into sustainable fuels.

The venture of the Razon group on waste management is anchored on its overall goal to metamorphose these recovered resources into cleaner fuels that could then be used by strategic industries, including the aviation and shipping sectors.

According to PWS, it pursued the automated MRF venture “in response to the increasing demand for proper waste management and resource recovery solutions in industrialized and fast-growing cities in the Philippines.”

As culled from studies, if municipal and urban wastes are properly managed and correspondingly processed into usable energy resources, this could help address the recurring problem of the country on power supply shortfalls and will also be a succor to its decarbonization strategy.

PWS said it will be targeting to scale the rollout of its debuted MRF technology in other parts of the country – so the other communities can also be helped on the worsening problem of wastes and garbage management.

PWS Chairperson Katrina Razon stated that the company’s business of extracting sustainable fuel from wastes with the use of the automated MRF technology will be the group’s contribution to “building a regenerative future.”

Equipment procurement, the company noted, had been from Europe and Asia – primarily for the vibrating sieves, baler systems, magnetic separators and the air density separator to maximize resource recovery leading to landfill avoidance.

On the waste recovery and fuel conversion venture of PWS, it is estimated that more than 15,000 tons of methane emissions per annum could be potentially avoided.

“We acknowledge the importance of responsible waste management in safeguarding our environment and the well-being of future generations,” Razon stressed, qualifying that with the set up being institutionalized by PWS, “every single one of you is a steward for a new way forward in the Philippines.”

Environment Secretary Ma. Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga, for her part, emphasized that the pioneering venture of PWS would primarily ease the burden of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on the sphere of waste management.

Nevertheless, she conveyed that “investments will not make sense without all the moving parts put on the table and that includes local governance, environmental management; that includes private investment with government and aligned with government in addressing these particular issues.”

She similarly cited the initiative of PWS on “incorporating the informal waste picker sector into the process,” adding that the introduction of the innovative technology will be bringing positive social impact on the project’s host community.

Further, Prime Infra Market Sector Lead for Waste Cara Peralta indicated that “although we’ve come far, there is still much work to be done,” asserting that the mission of PWS “does not end with sorting, segregating, and stacking bales of waste - it ends with waste value creation.”

She added “our goal is to further enhance our process flow and to essentially go back to our original objective of turning waste into sustainable fuels to further reduce methane emissions and for our country to be able to provide sustainable fuels to the global market.”