VietNamNet Bridge – Slow to install a solid waste processing system, Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s biggest waste dumper, still buries most of its 7,000 tons of solid waste every day.

In a meeting last month with municipal authorities, Minister of Construction Nguyen Hong Quan said HCMC’s so-called Hiep Phuoc or Da Phuoc solid waste processing zone wasn’t really doing any “processing.” “Solid waste is merely collected, transported and buried,” he said.

That was why the construction ministry had submitted to the Prime Minister a plan to really process solid waste for the city.

6 years ago, however, HCMC did approve a project using high technology to turn solid waste into organic fertilizers, slashing the amount of time needed daily to process solid waste.

The municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment was charged with carrying out the project and its HCMC Urban Environment Company was appointed the project investor.

Yet, according to a report from the HCMC People’s Committee last November, the project was still “being perfected” before being submitted to higher authorities for approval.

Huynh Minh Nhut, director of HCMC Urban Environment Company, said only until recently was his company able to find the 5 ha needed for the project and two years from now can the processing factory be up and running.

Also in 2005, HCMC approved the Da Phuoc solid waste processing project to recycle solid waste and turn it into organic fertilizers and selected Vietnam Waste Solutions Ltd. (VWS) to be the project investor.

VWS said all necessary facilities had been in place now but cautioned that it could only recycle solid waste if the waste it receives from the city has already been separated into different categories, which many say is “impossible” for HCMC at the moment and even for years to come.

Professor Tran Kim Qui from the HCMC University of Natural Sciences said he had submitted another solid waste-to-organic fertilizers plan to the city which had been recognized by the municipal Department of Sciences and Technology. Yet, the city hesitates to approve this project partly because its solid waste has already been “allotted.”

At present, HCMC plans to carry out numerous solid waste processing projects including some that will use solid waste to generate electricity. But the city said all of them could only be put to use after 2015.

VietNamNet/Tuoi Tre