VietNamNet Bridge – The HCM City People’s Committee now works with competent agencies on the initiative to allow the Vietnam Waste Solution (VWS) to import waste to be recycled at the company’s $10 million factory.

HCM City Vice Mayor Nguyen Huu Tin made the proposal at the meeting with the Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at the factory on February 2.

The factory, developed by VWS over the last three years, reportedly needs thousands of tons of rubbish every day to generate power.

VWS’s General Director David Duong said since the city has been slow in implementing the waste classification program, the compose factory and the recycling factories have been left idle since 2011 because of the lack of materials.

Therefore, he has proposed to allow VWS to import waste to ensure sufficient materials for the factories.

According to Tin, Vietnam now prohibits enterprises and organizations to import materials for recycling, while this is a very popular thing permitted in other countries.

In 2011, VWS once asked for the permission to import 10,000 tons of waste for domestic recycling to run the factories on a trial basis. However, the proposal was rejected because this was prohibited by the environment laws.

According to Huynh Thi Lan Phuong, Deputy General Director of VWS, VWS can handle with 10,000 tons of waste a day, but it has 3,000 tons only.

Tin has promised to control the imports to be brought to Vietnam by VWS to ensure that the environment laws are respected, and that the imports can only enter Vietnam if they can meet the required standards.

VWS, in an effort to make the proposal more convincing, has suggested that it would make the deposits worth millions of US dollars and take responsibility for the violations.

According to Phuong, at first, VWS committed to invest $90 million in the project in Da Phuoc district in HCM City, but it has poured $120 million into the project so far.  Meanwhile, in early 2014, it received the permission on raising the investment capital to $150 million.

Analysts commented that VWS can hope that its proposal would be approved.

The Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said he has visited 10 waste treatment factories so far and he has found that the waste treatment still cannot be done well.

Dung stressed that waste treatment is the field which Vietnam encourages the investments in. Therefore, the settlement of the legal problems faced by enterprises would be on high priority.

As for VWS, Dung agrees that VWS needs to have to have more rubbish to treat, if it really can get 3,000 tons out of the 10,000 tons it needs a day.

“The most important factor is the waste quality. If the factory can run at full capacity, the factories would be able to minimize the production costs,” he said.

Prior to that, on January 10, 2014, the Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Nguyen Minh Quang, at the working session with VWS, also said it is highly possible that VWS would be allowed to import waste for recycling.

Quang said though the laws still do not allow this, competent agencies still can find the ways to import waste in specific cases.

TBKTSG