The Vietstar Lemna Eco Centre, which is also the largest modern waste treatment facility in Vietnam, has been built with a total investment of 53 million USD.

It will be able to accept 1,200 tonnes of garbage per day from the city and treat it with environmental friendly technology to convert it into useful products.

“Lemna’s proprietary technology is uniquely suited to Vietnam’s hot and rainy climate and the whole facility has been designed and built to provide the most comprehensive solution for HCM City’s urgent call for solid waste treatment,” Poldi Gerard, acting general director and chairperson of Vietstar’s Board of Management, said on Dec. 15.

The facility accepts unsorted, mixed municipal solid waste.

The garbage will be sorted and the organic portion will be turned into high quality compost and organic fertilisers for agriculture.

Film plastic will be carefully washed and reprocessed into plastic pellets that will be sold to manufacturers. This material can replace costly imported plastic resin made from petroleum.

In addition to creating useful products from the waste, the facility will help the environment by keeping more than 80 percent of the waste out of landfills, thereby reducing greenhouse gases and the production of leachate.

Vietstar will operate the facility for 30 years under a long-term “put-or-pay” service contract with the City’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment, charging the city a tipping fee of 5 USD per tonne.

Vietstar Company obtained its original investment licence in 2005. It was founded and developed by Lemna International, a US-based infrastructure development company, which also built the facility under an EPC (Engineering-Procurement-Construction) contract.

Lemna invested more than 10 million USD in the facility. The remaining funds came from contributions by Vietnam Infrastructure Supero Co of VinaCapital Group, and loans provided by three European Development Finance Institutions – (FMO of the Netherlands, DEG of Germany and Swedfund of Sweden).