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VietNamNet Bridge – The scientists from the Institute of Ecology and
Biological Resources have successfully used earthworms to treat organic rubbish,
which is believed to make a breakthrough in the waste treatment in Vietnam.
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Initial success
“We have found out that 70 percent of household rubbish is organic waste which can be recycled. Therefore, we decided to use earthworms to treat household waste with worms,” said Dr Huynh Thi Kim Hoi from the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources, the head of the project.
“Only 0.1-0.2 kilos of worms is needed to treat 300 kilos of organic waste with the treatment efficiency of 100 percent,” she added.
The scientists’ team then developed the mechanism of treating organic waste with worms to replace the traditional methods such as burning or dumping rubbish. The mechanism was used on a trial basis at five households in Lam Hong Commune in Dong Anh district, and on Buoi and Long Bien market areas in Hanoi.
After that, the mechanism has been spontaneously developed in some other localities such as Me Linh, Tu Liem and Hoang Mai.
With the mechanism, rubbish is gathered from households and markets. Organic waste including tree leaves, straw, vegetables, banana skins… are put together in a tank. When the rubbish gets rotten, it is the time to put worms into the rubbish tank.
The amount of worms depends on the amount of rubbish. In order to treat 300 kilos of rubbish, farmers just need to put 0.1-0.2 kilos of worms. The organic waste then becomes the feed for the worms.
Will the mechanism be used in a large scale?
The experiments all showed that treating waste with worms can bring high efficiency of 100 percent, and no odor has been left after the treatment. Nguyen The Luc, a farmer of the Phu Tri Agriculture Cooperative in Kim Hoa Commune in Me Linh district, said that he has used organic fertilizer made of worm-treated rubbish to manure vegetables and he is satisfactory with the results.
“We don’t have to spend money to buy pesticide, and chemical fertilizer, while the organic fertilizer is save for users,” he said. “Especially, we can feed fowl and ducks with worms, which allows us to reduce the livestock feed volume we have to purchase at high prices. Therefore, the production costs have decreased, while the economic values have increased”.
However, according to Dr Hoi, the mechanism can only succeed if there are some favorable conditions. She admitted that the mechanism has not been expanded because of the problems in rubbish classification.
“It is very difficult to persuade people to put organic rubbish and inorganic rubbish separately. It is the habit of people of putting everything together into plastic bags and then putting the bags on the pavements which will be taken away by the cleaners,” she said.
Also, in order to treat waste this way, people have to breed worms, while households need to have large space to use worms to treat rubbish right at their homes.
“If there is no active support and participation of people, the mechanism would die like many other previous waste treatment projects,” Hoi said.
Every year, Vietnam every year discharges 15 million tons of solid waste, 80 percent of which are domestic waste, 17 percent industrial waste, one percent of toxic waste, and two percent of other kinds of waste.
In Hanoi alone, the total solid domestic waste is about 5000 tons per day, while the volume of rubbish increases by 15 percent per annum. It is estimated that by 2015, the city will have no more place for rubbish dump.
Dat Viet
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