Kittisak Aphichatabat, chief executive officer of PJT Technology, the company in charge of the incinerator, confirmed the second incinerator was up and running, and so far had been burning 700 tonnes of garbage per day.
“But we need a backup plan for when the incinerator needs to be shut down for around 45 days every year for maintenance and cleaning, as we will not be able to burn trash during that time,” he said.
Government officials are now proposing to build a third incinerator in the future, to cope with the island’s ever increasing trash problem.
They have proposed digging up the trash currently buried on the site adjacent to the second incinerator, burn it, and then use that land to build the third incinerator on.
However, officials said that the success of the proposed project depended on cooperation between all parties involved, and whether there was sufficient budget for its construction.
Vice Governor Somkiet Sangkaosutthirak agreed with the idea of a third incinerator, and estimated the cost per year (the cost of the new incinerator and additional garbage trucks) at around B30 million.