PASSI invests P25 million for Palawan joint venture

CEBU, Philippines – The group of Cebuano mechanical engineers that established the first common treatment facility for health care wastes through Autoclave, is spending at least P25 million to expand its service to Palawan.

The Pollutions Abatement Systems Specialists Inc., (PASSI) recently inked a joint-venture deal with the Puerto Princesa City government in Palawan led by City Mayor Edward S. Hagedorn to treat the city’s health care wastes.

PASSI’s service, which strictly implements the Republic Act 6969 or the Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Waste Control Act, will be adopted by the entire Puerto Princesa City in the next couple of months, said PASSI president Julieto Pugoy.

According to Pugoy, this is the first joint-venture deal of the company with a local government unit (LGU) in its six years of operations.

“We hope this will be the start of our nationwide expansion bid and partnership with other local government units around the country,” Pugoy said.

Under the agreement, the City government of Puerto Princesa will provide a 1,000 square-meter property for the establishment of the wastes treatment facility, with similar size and capacity installed by the company in Inawayan, Cebu.

Pugoy added that under the agreement the Puerto Princesa local government unit would aggressively implement in the toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Waste Control Act.

"The Mayor said that the LGU will require hospitals and health facilities in the city to comply with the law or face the punishment of closure," he said.

Cebu-based PASSI has been operating an autoclave treatment facility in Inayawan, this city, since 2003 and had been treating hazardous wastes from hospitals, funeral parlors, and other healthcare establishments.

The autoclave machine kills viruses and bacteria in medical waste by employing heat. It is equipped with a metal chamber sealed by a charging door and surrounded by a steam jacket, then steam is introduced into the chamber using the required temperature to kill the bacteria.

Pugoy said however that said five years after it started operating here, the company continues to incur losses and operates less than capacity since only few healthcare establishments are availing of their service.

The group of Cebuano mechanical engineers, mostly are retired spent their retirement money to invest in this facility, upon the encouragement of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to install such facility in Cebu six years ago.

Pugoy said the company has decided to offer their services out-of-Cebu as this law is not strictly implemented here, with only handful of hospitals and medical clinics are treating their wastes properly.

In Cebu, Pugoy said the implementation of the law is more on voluntary rather than “mandatory.”

Now, that there are several viruses that hit the country, like the A H1N1, Pugoy said the more that healthcare clinics especially hospitals should treat their waste appropriately.

“We don’t want to recycle the A H1N1 virus. We have to treat hospital waste in a proper way,” he said. —Ehda M. Dagooc