The HCM City Department of Planning and Investment has just proposed the city’s people’s committee to green-light Australia-owned Trisun Green Energy Co. to carry out a more comprehensive study for their waste-to-power manufacturing plant.

The project would be located at Northwest Solid Waste Treatment Complex in Ho Chi Minh City’s Cu Chi district and is designed to use cutting-edge plasma technology.

The Ho Chi Minh City-based company plans to spend around $520 million to equip the facility with plasma torches to achieve temperatures of 3,000-7,000 degrees Celsius to incinerate 2,000 tonnes of waste a day.

The estimated cost for domestic waste treatment is set at $32 per tonne. The investor (Trisun), however, stated that treatment costs would fall to $31.8 per tonne if they were assigned to treat 1,000 tonnes of waste a day, and decrease to just $29.8 per tonne upon operating at maximum capacity, as reported by newswire dddn.com.vn.

The project, having a total investment capital of $520 million, was first submitted to the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee in late 2011. Then in September last year, at a meeting with the city’s management authority and diverse governmental agencies, the investor committed to building the project in 33 months over a land plot measuring 10-15ha only.

According to the investor’s proposal, the plasma-tech waste treatment facility will have a 50 year duration, and is expected to treat 2,000 tonnes of domestic waste, 700-1,000 tonnes of industrial and hazardous waste, and 1,000-2,000 tonnes of sludge daily.

The project would recycle runaway heat to fuel an electricity station of state-owned power authority Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), while the post-incineration material would be turned into building materials.

The investor also proposed pegging the cost of treating sludge at $60 per tonne.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment, the plasma-technology waste treatment project meets the city’s waste treatment requirements and is suitable to treat all kinds of waste, including harmful ones.

Furthermore, the project has a high treatment capacity, requires less land and no garbage classification, at the same time as generating renewable energy and producing building materials.

Despite being of the opinion that plasma-technology is currently one of the most advanced waste treatment technologies, the city’s management authority, held that more studies were necessary to ensure that the project matches the city’s actual needs and requirements, as well as investors’ profitability.

Companies currently involved in solid waste treatment in Ho Chi Minh City are Vietnam Waste Solutions (VWS), disposing of 5,000 tonnes of waste per day, Tam Sinh Nghia, with 1,000 tonnes, and Vietstar, with 1,200 tonnes.

The waste volume generated in Ho Chi Minh City reportedly picks up around 8 per cent annually.

Under the city’s waste treatment zoning plan, up to 40 per cent of the waste volume would be recycled, 40 per cent buried, and the remainder incinerated by the end of 2015.

As of now, Da Phuoc integrated waste management facility, which covers 128ha in Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Chanh district and is developed by US-backed VWS with a total investment capital exceeding $100 million, is one of the most modern waste treatment facilities in the world, boasting a capacity to handle up to 5,000 tonnes of waste a day.