This highly urbanized city is preparing an integration and implementation framework in its bid to adopt an innovative waste-to-energy (WTE) project in collaboration with the Department of Energy (DOE).

The development comes Friday after the city’s Solid Waste Management Board (SWMB) drafted a resolution formalizing the adoption of the framework.

“It is slated for approval by the City Council and subsequent submission to the National Solid Waste Management Commission,” the city government said in a statement.

Last month, Mayor Greg Gasataya signed a memorandum of agreement with Energy Secretary Sharon Garin to establish a framework for technical cooperation and coordination between the two parties to advance the installation of a WTE facility.

Under the initiative, the city will convert waste into sustainable power, with the potential to generate up to 15 megawatts at the Bacolod Integrated Recycling and Technology Hub.

Spanning 25.7 hectares, the city-owned facility is located adjacent to the 5-hectare sanitary landfill in Barangay Felisa.

The city government has received support from the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI) and the Bacolod Anti-Baha Alliance, both members of the SWMB, in advancing the WTE project.

“A WTE solution is really needed, considering the bulk of the garbage that we have. Based on their data, one landfill can already be filled up in just a year and six months. We need a new technology for processing waste,” MBCCI president Juliana Carbon said in a statement.

Carbon noted that the approach not only addresses landfill capacity issues but also promotes community-wide adoption of reuse, recycling and composting practices.

“This initiative will help the city in reducing our waste. I understand that waste-to-energy is last in the hierarchy, after all the process from avoidance to composting. I hope it will serve as a message to the community to cooperate in waste management,” Dionisio de la Cruz of the Bacolod Anti-Baha Alliance said in a statement. (PNA)