PUBLISHED : 14 Nov 2023 at 05:26
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) will rent electric garbage trucks to replace their diesel vehicles and build two more waste-to-energy (WTE) plants to improve the city’s waste management.
BMA deputy permanent secretary Chatree Wattanakajorn said on Monday that the BMA had signed a contract that allows a private company to build the plants at waste incineration sites in Nong Khaem district and the On Nut area in Phra Khanong district.
BMA expects construction to start early next year and finish before the end of 2026.
Mr Chatree said the project will be carried out under a build-operate-transport model, with the winning bidder given a 20-year concession to run the plants before it has to transfer the facilities back to BMA.
Moreover, the BMA has been given a budget from the 2023 fiscal year to build another incineration plant in Nong Khaem, which generates 21-24 megawatts of electricity, 19 megawatts of which will be sold.
The project has been approved by the Interior Ministry, and the public is welcome to submit a bid for the project, said Mr Chatree.
The project aims to reduce the amount of garbage which ends up in landfills from 4.1 tonnes daily, or roughly 45% of the total garbage collected, to 1.7 tonnes, or 15% daily.
Also, the BMA plans to increase the capacity of the WTE plants from managing 500 tonnes of garbage a day, or about 5% of the total garbage, to 28%.
Mr Chatree also revealed that the BMA is consulting the Environmental Research Institute of Chulalongkorn University to privatise the garbage collection and waste management at the On Nut and Nong Khaem incineration sites with conditions that the entire process must be run with diesel-free vehicles and must not pollute neighbouring areas.
The BMA also plans to replace diesel garbage trucks with 842 EV trucks this year. In 2025, the agency will deploy another 721 EV garbage trucks, totalling 1,563 EV garbage trucks in Bangkok.