Why the Philippines?
The Philippines is known for its numerous islands and its pristine waters. With about 7,640 islands, the Philippines is surrounded by the ocean. The Philippines has the second largest coral reef area in Southeast Asia, spanning an estimated 26,000 square kilometres. With such a large coral reef area, the Philippines boasts rich biodiversity of marine life with more than 400 coral species, 19 seagrass species, more than 3,000 species of fish and about 5,000 species of clams, snails and molluscs.
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However, 98% of Philippine reefs are threatened, with 70% at very high or high risk. While unsustainable fishing, such as cyanide fishing, largely contributes to reef deterioration, untreated waste entering the oceans also plays a part in coral reef damage. About 17.6 million people in the Philippines live below the poverty line, and extreme poverty can be seen in rural areas. In such cases, households tend not to have proper facilities and sanitation. People who live near rivers and the ocean and have little or no adequate sanitation facilities are highly likely to discard their untreated waste directly into the rivers or oceans.
Due to the rich biodiversity of the Philippine coral reefs and the extent of damage that the marine ecosystem is facing, the Philippines was chosen for this project.
Which part of the Philippines will this Project be Implemented?
The Malogo river leads to the Guimaras Strait. The Guimaras Strait connects the Visayan Sea with the Panay Gulf.
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Instead of choosing a location along the coastline, I chose a location along a river. This is because open defecation in rivers is more common than in the sea, and human wastes are also dumped into the rivers. Furthermore, people are more likely to use a river as a source of water for bathing as well as washing clothes, cooking utensils and vegetables. This means that the dumping of human wastes in rivers affects the marine ecosystem and can also cause diseases to spread among humans.
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The Malogo river was chosen as there are many poorly equipped houses along the river. As the houses along the river are poorly equipped, they do not have proper sanitation facilities. Therefore, those living alongside the river have a higher chance of improperly disposing of their waste into the river.
Our Chosen Company
The chosen company is the Victorias Milling Company, Inc., known as VMC for short. VMC is located in Victorias, Negros Occidental in the Philippines and is about a 10 to 30 minutes car or motorbike ride away.
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VMC is one of the biggest raw and refined sugar producers in the Philippines and has a daily grinding capacity of 15,000 tonnes of sugar cane daily. About 10 tonnes of processed sugarcane produces about 3 tonnes of bagasse; therefore VMC produces about 4,500 tonnes of bagasse a day.
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VMC uses four biomass steam turbine power generating units and eight units of boilers to supply steam to the biomass turbines. The four biomass steam turbine power generating units have a total capacity of 34,000 kWh, while the eight boilers would require about 1,152 kWh of electricity. Therefore, the total electricity requirement would be 35,152 kWh. As one tonne of bagasse can produce about 25 kWh of electricity, the amount of bagasse required to reach the electricity requirement is approximately 1,406 tonnes.
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This means on a daily basis, there will be an excess of about 3,094 tonnes of bagasse. Some of the excess bagasse will have to be set aside for the company to ensure there is no shortage of bagasse so that the factory will have a continuous electricity supply.