VietNamNet Bridge – Investors are willing to spend money to build modern
garbage treatment plants which would generate electricity and make compost
fertilizer. However, they need the amounts of garbage big enough to run.
A report showed that 23 tons of domestic garbage is discharged every day from
urban areas, while 85 percent of the garbage has been dumped at the landfills
and only 15 percent has been treated to make compost fertilizer.
According to Nguyen Trung Viet, Chief Secretariat of the HCM City Office for
Climate Change Studies, about 9,200 tons out of the total 23,000 tons of garbage
every day (40 percent) can be burnt to generate electricity with the total
capacity of 200 MW.
HCM City alone discharges 7,500 tons of garbage every day, which could be a big
source of fuel for making electricity.
Scientists repeatedly say that Vietnam is wasting its garbage when dumping it.
Meanwhile, the garbage can be used for many useful purposes. Investors, both
foreign and domestic, have committed to pour money into garbage treatment
projects. However, very few such projects have been developed, for many reasons.
Masanori Tsakahara from Japanese Hitachi Sozen said at a workshop held in early
March 2013, that his company was considering the feasibility study to build a
plant which burns garbage to create electricity. The plant is expected to burn
1,000 tons of garbage every day, with the capacity of 25MW in the Tay Bac Cu Chi
solid waste treatment complex. The total investment of the project is estimated
at $100 million.
However, he said, the company still needs to consider relating factors to ensure
the smooth operation of the plant. If the plants runs 8,000 hours a year, and
the electricity price is $0.05-0.2 per kwh, the garbage treatment cost would be
about $40 per ton.
Nguyen Thanh Lam, a senior official from the Agency for Waste Control and
Environment Improvement, commented that no province and city would have enough
money to afford such a high cost.
The Da Phuoc Solid Waste Treatment Complex in Binh Chanh district in HCM City,
invested by VWS, reportedly treats 3,000 tons of garbage for the city every day.
Though it is a complex with modern technologies which aim to treat garbage in an
industrial scale, most of the garbage still has been dumped.
The problem here is that the garbage carried to the complex has not been
classified; therefore, the garbage treatment plant still cannot start its
operation.
In fact, the HCM City’ dwellers have been encouraged to classify garbage right
at their houses to help the industrial garbage treatment process. A pilot
program on classifying garbage was initiated many years ago in district 6 many
years ago.
However, the program has not been applied in a large scale in the whole city,
while local people in district 6 have also given up the classification.
The problem was that the dust-carts were too old which did not have two trays to
put different kinds of garbage. Therefore, the people’s garbage classification
was useless, because garbage all was put all together into the same garbage
trucks.
In fact, urban dwellers have been classifying garbage themselves for a long
time. They can sell papers and some plastics to cast iron dealers, who would
carry the refuse to the private run garbage treatment workshops. However, the
government does not encourage the private workshops, which have been polluting
the environment with the backward treatment method.
SGTT