VietNamNet Bridge - Instead of spending $20 to bury one ton of waste, HCM City will incinerate the waste, which also costs $20 per ton, but it will also be to generate power and save land.

 

Nguyen Trung Viet from the HCM City Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, said 7,000-8,000 tons of garbage are discharged in HCM City every day. Of this, 45-60 percent is food, which can be used to make fertilizer and generate power.

Under a decision of the Prime Minister, by 2015, the proportion of waste to be buried must be reduced to 45 percent, while the other 55 percent must be recycled. However, in HCM City now, burying garbage remains the major way of dealing with waste.

Vietstar, the factory that makes compost in Cu Chi district, receives 1,200 tons of garbage a day, but it can put out 600 tons of compost only, while the remaining waste is brought to landfills. 

Viet agreed with the proposal to incinerate the remaining waste for electricity generation.

Pham Trong Thuc, head of the Recycled Energy Department, noted that waste should not be thrown away and money must be spent to settle the environmental problems caused by waste.

One of the biggest problems that hinder the implementation of waste incineration programs is the classification of garbage at the source.

However, experts said the success of the program in the future would not heavily depend on classification, thanks to new incineration technologies which have been put into use.

At a recent workshop, businesses described new technologies for waste classification. A representative from Japanese company Hitachi Zosen said that 50 years ago Japanese also did not have the habit of classifying garbage at source, but the country then developed power-generation incinerators.

The company has received permission from HCM City authorities to carry out a feasibility study on two projects to recycle waste with incineration technology (1,000 tons per day) and biogas (500 kilos of garbage per day).

Some analysts said the high cost of running incinerators would not be feasible.

However, Huynh Kim Tuoc, director of the Energy Saving Center in HCM City, has said that it would be not too costly to run incinerators.

According to Tuoc, the investment rate for a 1,000 ton/day incinerator is $150 million, 15 percent of which is paid to waste classification. The expense can be cut as the preliminary classification has been done. 

Meanwhile, investors can reduce the expenses on machines and equipment as government Decree No 04 includes investment incentives to encourage environmental protection projects.

NLD