Representatives from Hitachi Zosen introduced the projects during a meeting with the city leaders on May 22, saying one of them will burn waste to generate electricity and collect methane gas for fertilizer, Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon Online reported.
They said they can start working on the power-generating project next year. The US$70 million facility can burn 600 tonnes of waste a day.
Ho Chi Minh City government has supported the idea but has not decided on the location and the kind of waste to be treated at the plant.
The company said it will spend around US$5 million on another project to treat waste at the wholesale market Binh Dien in the city. It plans to treat around 50 tonnes a day and collect bio gas in the process.
As for the third project, it has prepared equipment to be installed in the city this September to treat 500 kilograms of food waste a day, storing it to collect bio gas and fertilizer. The project is expected to cost around US$2 million.
Taiyo Miyagi, director in charge of global promotion trade at Hitachi Zosen, said the company has spent four years studying the volumes and components of waste in the city.
It has learned that there’s a very good chance it could turn the waste into energy, he said.
The company said it has developed 477 waste treatment plants around the world.
It also supplies equipment for a plant in Hanoi, which is going to operate next year, aiming to incinerate 75 tonnes of garbage a day for power generation.
Power-generating incinerators are a popular waste treatment method in developed countries, but not in Vietnam, where solid waste has not been classified. The country also cannot afford the costs yet.
Vietnam is discharging around 76,000 tonnes of waste a day, 80% of it buried and the rest burned or turned into fertilizers.
HCM City discharges around 8,000 tonnes a day and also buries 75% of it. Tat Thanh Cang, vice chairman of the city, said at the meeting that the method “is only contemporary as it takes a lot of land.”