Brick plan set to lower sewage-recycling costs

Taipei City Government is set to recycle effluent from sewage treatment plants into bricks in a bid to deliver on the city's environmental promises.

The city government's Bureau of Public Works yesterday proposed the recycling plan to Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who said that it would help the capital both economically and environmentally.

Director of the Bureau of Public Works William Chen (陳威仁) said that, according to bureau results, turning sewer waste into bricks as well as mixing it with garbage for incineration are two of the most economical and effective ways to dispose of effluent.

"It costs about NT$2,000 per tonne of waste to dump it into landfill. By turning it into bricks or incinerating it, we only spend NT$1,500," Chen said.

Chen said that Ma had approved the plan because it fulfills the city's environmental policy of "zero landfill and total recycling." He added that the bureau will outsource the project to private companies as soon as possible.

"We expect the policy to be put into practice before the end of this year," Chen said.

The director explained that Taipei City's sewage-treatment outflow along the Tamsui River is expected to reach 300 tonnes a day by 2011 because of increased household-sewage discharge.

Current outflow from Taipei City and Taipei County, both of which are serviced by the Pali sewage treatment plant in Pali Township, stands at less than 100 tonnes a day combined.

Taipei City Government which has sought ways to process effluent for many years, originally planned to build an incinerator at the Pali water-treatment plant.

However, the plan was aborted last year when the government refused to fund the project and local residents in Pali township fiercely protested the building of an incinerator in the region.

Turning the waste into bricks will require mixing the effluent with clay.

"The quality of the bricks will be the same as the regular bricks we use," a staff member of the bureau's Department of Public Sewerage Systems Lin Chien-fen (林建芬) said yesterday.

The bureau is also studying ways to pelletize the waste.

"Because the sludge is composed of 80 percent water, it needs to be furthered dried for any recycling purpose," Lin said.

She said that the pelletized waste would be smaller in bulk and could be used as fuel.