VietNamNet Bridge - The increase in population and different kinds of production in the country have led to an increase in solid waste. 

The composition of the waste is also increasingly complex, but the treatment and management have not improved, experts have said.

The fire at an intermediary waste treatment workshop No 4 at the Nam Son Waste Treatment Complex in Hanoi in early February 2017 stunned the public. The accident affected a large area of 900 square meters and burned down 800 tons of hazardous waste. 

According to Hoang Van Dac, chair of Urenco 10, after the accident occurred, the company conducted the water separation for all the unburned waste in the workshop, using block molding machines to force water separation for batches of waste and then put it into containers. 

The increase in population and different kinds of production in the country have led to an increase in solid waste.

However, the problem is that that hazardous waste was not only stored in the workshop, but also on the yard outside. Explaining this, Dac said, the company is still awaiting MONRE’s license for operating its incinerator, so the untreated waste volume is large.

In mid-2016, MONRE released the result of the analysis of sludge waste samples taken from the illegally dumped ground in a farm in Ky Anh district of Ha Tinh province, concluding that this was hazardous waste with very high cyanide. 

Meanwhile, a lot of consignments of hazardous waste have been imported to Vietnam by individuals and institutions under the disguise of input materials for local production. The imports are metal scraps, waste plastics and rubber tires, unclean containers, waste batteries and used electronic products.

Experts have complained that while the volume of hazardous waste keeps increasing and the composition of the waste is complex, the treatment capacity has not improved.

The MONRE’s 2016 national environment report showed that 76 million tons of straw and about 47 million tons of animal waste are produced every year in rural areas, not including waste from craft villages. Only 45 percent of animal waste is treated, while the remaining is discharged directly to ponds and canals.

Craft villages, especially the metal recycling workshops in the north, discharge 1-7 tons of metal dust, drafts and rust.

In Xa Cau hamlet of Ung Hoa district in Hanoi alone, 160 households living on collecting and recycling scrap discharges two tons of hazardous waste every day.

Where does the waste go? A large proportion of the waste is dumped. And the method has turned many areas into open-air hazardous soil and polluting sources.

The surveys conducted by state management agencies found that in the provinces of the Central Highlands and coastal areas of the central region, industrial and solid waste are buried together. 

In the Central Highlands, open-air dumping grounds are located in valleys near water sources.

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