Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome (left) and
Assistant Professor Bunma Panpradit (right), head of the Energy and
Environmental Engineering Operations Center at Thammasart University,
sign an agreement to study harvesting biogases as a way to reduce the
city’s growing mountain of garbage.
Pratchaya Kerdthong
Already planning the area’s first waste-to-energy
plant, Pattaya officials are now looking at harvesting biogases as a way
to reduce the city’s growing mountain of garbage.
Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome and Assistant Professor
Bunma Panpradit, head of the Energy and Environmental Engineering
Operations Center at Thammasart University, signed an agreement March 29
to study trash separation and reprocessing.
The plan calls for garbage from four areas to be
collected and sorted then repurposed to produce different types of
alternative energy.
For example, Bunma said, fruit skins can be
reprocessed into charcoal, palm and coconut oils into ether, biodiesel
and glycerin. Biogases from animal waste can be used in non-aerobic
waste processing, producing methane and other thermal-energy gases.
He estimated it would take up to four years to bring
such a facility fully online.
Pattaya produces up to 400 tons of garbage a day,
second only to Bangkok. City officials have said that as the city grows
in popularity, so does its trash problem. With insufficient space to
continue building landfills, other solutions are needed.
The city is also moving forward with a Provincial
Electrical Authority pilot project to construct the area’s first
waste-to-energy incinerator.
