SLUDGE MANAGEMENT MASTER PLAN

FOR A HIGHLY URBANIZED METRO

D. Perez*, S. Cerbito**
*Used Water Operations Department, Manila Water Company, Inc., Quezon City, Philippines (email: donna.cabalona@manilawater.com)
**Used Water Operations Department, Manila Water Company, Inc., Quezon City, Philippines (email: sharon.cerbito@manilawater.com)

INTRODUCTION METHODOLOGY
Manila Water is the private company providing water and sewerage A Sludge Management Master Plan was crafted to mitigate the adverse
service in the East Zone of Metro Manila through a Concession effects in operating costs brought about by the increasing sludge
Agreement via a Public-Private Partnership with the Metropolitan production of all used water facilities.
Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS).
PRELIMINARY PILOT TRIAL OF WASTE-TO-ENERGY
EVALUATION WASTE-TO-ENERGY PROJECT

BIOCHEMICAL FACILITY TRIAL FULL SCALE

METHANE IMPLEMENTATION
POTENTIAL STUDY

Figure 1: Dewatered sludge sample

Figure 2: The Sludge Management Master Plan
With the expansion of its sewerage service and coverage, new and The strategy is anchored on anaerobic digestion technology.
centralized used water treatment facilities are expected to be built Anaerobic digestion is a process that breaks down biodegradable
within the next 22 years. Hence, a need to mitigate the increasing total matter in the absence of oxygen and converts it to biogas–-which in
operating costs specially for power and sludge management. turn can be converted to energy.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The last stage of the Sludge Management Master Plan then involves the
full scale implementation of the Waste-To-Energy (WTE) facilities in which
there are 3 proposed sites. Amongst the 40 existing sewage treatment
facilities, a cost benefit analysis was conducted to ascertain the optimum
number of waste-to-energy facilities and the corresponding treatment
process to be used per site. It was then determined that a minimum of 3
sites will be installed with a waste-to-energy facility and all 3 will cater to
the sludge production of all the 40 existing treatment facilities. The
combined benefits of the 3 WTE facilities is a net power generation of
20,000 KWH/day with a total sludge volume reduction of 52% and a total
annual operational cost savings of Php 66M.
Figure 3: Methane Volume Measurement Set-Up (Diagram)

The Sludge Management Master Plan has three main stages:

1) Preliminary evaluation
2) Pilot Trial
3) implementation of waste-to-energy project

In the preliminary evaluation stage, the various substrates from used

water treatment facilities (septage, primary sludge and waste activated
sludge) were assayed in a lab scale experiment to quantity and
characterize their degradability and corresponding biogas production. In
this experiment, the results showed that all the 3 substrates are biogas
producing – with septage sludge performing similar to secondary sludge.

In the second stage, a pilot trial facility was constructed in FTI Septage
treatment plant. The pilot facility was completed last Dec. 2016 and is
operational using septage sludge as substrate. Septage sludge was used
amongst all the other different substrates due to limited studies on
anaerobic digestion using septage sludge. The results of the facility
proved to be successful and was able to reach a methane yield of 90-100
mL CH4 / kg volatile solids with an SRT of 15 days. The pilot facility is
currently being optimized using various types of substrates and
differentiating substrate feed into the system.
Figure 4: BMP Values of Various Substrates
Notes:
Primary sludge – settled solids from primary clarifier
Secondary sludge – waste activated sludge; removed sludge from aeration tanks to maintain bacteria count
Septage – septage from FTI SpTP
Dewatered sludge blend – blended biosolids from 7 STPs composed of primary and secondary sludge
Dewatered sludge blend – blended biosolids from 7 STPs composed of secondary sludge alone

CONCLUSIONS
In view of the expansion for the progressive execution of the service obligations and the current uneconomical current disposal method, a
comprehensive sludge management strategy to decrease volume and minimize hauling cost should be undertaken by Manila Water. This tactic will not
only mitigate the increasing OPEX but will also pave for non-core business opportunities.