Singapore-based IUT Global has begun building an organic waste
treatment plant in Tuas that is set to be the first and largest of
its kind in Asia.
The S$60 million facility will specialise in converting food and
other organic waste into biogas and compost materials.
The plant, to be completed in 2007, will have the capacity to churn
a quarter of Singapore's food waste into electricity and compost
materials.
The facility will also help achieve the government's food waste
recycling target of 30% by 2012.
IUT Global's CEO, Edwin Khew, said: "By the time 2012 comes, we're
confident we're going to have the second phase fully running and
operational and we would have gone beyond the government's Green
Plan projections."
At half a million tonnes last year, food waste makes up nearly
one-tenth of Singapore's total waste.
With the new plant, IUT Global says it will be able to generate
enough electricity for itself and over 10,000 other industrial
facilities.
Its biggest challenge lies in getting mass food operators like
hotels, food courts and factories to sort out their trash
properly.
Edwin Khew said: "For us to be effective and to be profitable, we
need obviously to go ahead and educate all these organic waste or
food waste generators how best to segregate their waste so that we
try and collect as pure food waste as organic waste as
possible."
At the ground-breaking ceremony on Thursday, Environment Minister
Yaacob Ibrahim said the government would step up its efforts to
encourage companies to join the recycling movement.
Dr Yaacob said: "We want to recycle as much as possible. But we
cannot push recycling unless there's a back-end to it, which is
such a facility.....So there's a win-win situation for us....We
want to help further this process by encouraging entrepreneurs to
put back a bit of money together with the government to do research
in some of these areas."
IUT Global is working with local universities to study organisms
that can achieve better yields for its production process. -
CNA/ir