The HCM City Inspectorate has asked the municipal People's Committee to re-open Landfill No 3 at the Phuoc Hiep solid waste treatment complex in Cu Chi District to avoid a company monopoly and to save city funds.

Phuoc Hiep solid waste treatment complex.

In April last year, the city's People's Committee decided to restrict waste treatment activities at Landfill No 3 because of pollution. Since then, the landfill has functioned only as a standby landfill.

Waste that would have normally been treated at Landfill No 3 is now being transferred to Da Phuoc Waste Treatment Complex in Binh Chanh District.

In 2013, Landfill No 3 began treating waste with a capacity of 2,000 tonnes a day.

The Inspectorate said that the landfill could not meet the function of a standby landfill because infrastructure construction at the site is still incomplete.

The Inspectorate has also asked the city to allow the construction to resume.

If the landfill were permanently closed, it could cause a total loss of VND1 trillion (US$45 million), the Inspectorate said.

This figure includes the original VND600 billion ($26.9 million) investment by the HCM City Urban Environment Company and an estimated compensation of VND400 billion ($17 million) to the company.

The department has signed waste treatment contracts with four companies — the HCM City Urban Environment Company, Vietstar Company, Tam Sinh Nghia Company and Viet Nam Solid Waste Management Company.

The Inspectorate found that the city's Department of Natural Resources and Environment's management board overseeing all waste treatment complexes had inspected the receipt and treatment of waste at the complexes of only three of the four companies: HCM City Urban Environment Company, Vietstar Company and Tam Sinh Nghia Company.

The management board, however, only inspected the receipt, not the treatment, of waste at the Da Phuoc Waste Treatment Complex operated by the Viet Nam Solid Waste Management Company.

Though the waste treatment technologies at Phuoc Hiep and Da Phuoc complexes have similar environmental protection measures, the Viet Nam Solid Waste Management Company is paid VND67,384 ($3) per tonne higher than the price paid to the HCM City Urban Environment Company, the main investor in Landfill No 3.

The two waste treatment complexes use similar methods of burial of waste, according to the city's Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

Based on this price difference, the city pays an additional VND48 billion (US$2.1 million) a year to transfer 2,000 tonnes of waste a day for treatment from Landfill No 3 in the Phuoc Hiep complex to the Da Phuoc complex, according to the Inspectorate.

Da Phuoc receives about 5,000 tonnes of waste a day, accounting for about 75 per cent of the city's daily waste.

The Inspectorate has asked the People's Committee to order the director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to seek bids for suppliers of waste treatment, in accordance with a decree issued by the city's Party Committee on bids for public services. 

VNS