Prefeasibility Study on Conventional Waste-to-Energy Project: Quezon City, Philippines

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) implemented a regional technical assistance, TA 8566: Mainstreaming Integrated Solid Waste Management in Asia, to conduct an assessment of solid waste management practices in five case study cities in Asia and to provide recommendations and best practices that can guide municipalities, ADB project officers and others on how to improve proper waste management and achieve a clean, livable city.

A primary focus of the TA is proposing a project that ADB could support and finance. For Quezon City, Philippines, one of the five cities under the TA, the preference is for a waste-to-energy (WtE) facility that will be the primary means of future waste management and disposal.

Under most calculations, the Payatas landfill has only several years of active life left as the main landfill for Quezon City, therefore implementation of the first WtE project needs to be on a fast track. Therefore the prefeasibility study suggests that a great deal of conservatism should be exercised when deciding the technology and commercial and legal structure (i.e. using proven technology and commercial structures).

The purpose of this prefeasibility report is to summarize and preliminarily assess key commercial and technical issues for the proposed WtE plant, which would be limited to disposal of waste collected within the boundaries of Quezon City and would be limited to broadly proven technology. This report should be read together with the already completed Solid Waste Action Plan which features a proposed terms sheet and bid parameters. While it should be noted that the plan proposed in the report is a backup plan to another WtE project development methodology being undertaken by Quezon City, if this back-up plan was ultimately pursued then this study could act as pre-cursor to a Final Full Feasibility Study along with fully developed Prequalification and Bidding Documents inclusive of a Draft Detailed Contract.