VietNamNet Bridge - The urban environment in HCM City has been threatened with the thousands of tons of untreated sludge, while the figure would be millions of tons in the next five years.

Sludge threatens urban dwellers

People had not thought about the necessity to treat sludge until “the Binh Huong waste water treatment plant’s trouble” that occurred some months ago.

Local newspapers reported that 4000 tons of sludge has been left at the waste water treatment plant, because the waste has nowhere to go. The laughter provoking story here is that a waste water treatment plant causes pollution to the environment.

For a long time, Vietnam has been focusing on treating waste and rubbish, while sludge should also be considered as a kind of waste that needs treatment.

According to the HCM City Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, the canal network in HCM City proves to be interlacing and complex. It is estimated that 2000 river and canal routes are put under the department’s control.

Meanwhile, the other 680 routes with the length of 900 kilometers are being controlled by the anti-flooding management agency. Districts’ people’s committees now control the remaining 200 other canal systems with the total length of 300 kilometers.

It is the interlacing canal network which has led to the rapid increase of the sludge volume on the rivers and canals in HCM City. On average, 500 tons of sludge is generated a day from the canals in the city.

Meanwhile, the Binh Hung waste water treatment plant churns out 40 tons of sludge more every day, and it has had 4000 tons of untreated sludge so far.

Analysts believe that some 5000-6000 tons of sludge is generated everyday in HCM City. In the future, HCM City would need some nine waste water treatment plants which have the same scale as the Binh Huong Plant.

However, no one can give the answer to the question about how to treat the sludge from the waste water treatment plants. The city’s authorities still have not found any perfect solution to the Binh Hung plant, let alone the other nine plants.

Meanwhile, experts have warned that the sludge volume has been increasing rapidly, reaching millions of tons after the next five years.

What to do? – Calling for cooperation

HCM City has drawn up a long term plan on developing waste water treatment plants like Binh Hung which has the capacity of 141,000 cubic meters a day, or the Binh Hung Hoa Plant which has the capacity of 30,000 cubic meters, and some waste treatment centers. Meanwhile, it has not paid attention to the treatment of sludge.

In the past, the majority of sludge was carried to the Dong Thanh dumping ground in district 12 in HCM City. However, Dong Thanh has shut its doors because of the overloading. As a result, sludge has nowhere to go, and people try to throw it away in any places they can.

In fact, a sludge treatment plant has taken shape already, but just on paper. The HCM City Water Drainage Company has been told to develop the Da Phuoc station to receive, process and treat sludge. The station, expected to cover an area of 42 hectares, would focus on treating the sludge to be discharged by the Binh Hung plant.

However, to date, the project still has not been implemented, while the 4000 tons of sludge of Binh Hung still has not been treated yet.

As such, urban dwellers still have to live together with sludge, while sludge, with toxic substances like heavy metals and chromium, according to Professor Le Huy Ba from the Nguyen Tat Thanh University, should be considered a kind of hazardous waste which must be treated before dumping.

Compiled by C. V