According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment MONRE, there are 755 urban areas in Vietnam where landfill remains the main method of waste treatment, which has caused to the serious environment pollution. Therefore, the application of modern suitable technologies in recycling and re-using waste, which allows to obtain economic benefits from waste, has become an urgent need in Vietnamese urban areas.
Waste treatment systems numerous, but ineffective
The latest reports by the World Bank of MONRE show that the total volume of domestic waste generated by urban areas tends to increase by 10-16 percent per annum. Every day, the whole country discharges 25,000 tons of domestic rubbish, while there are only 22 waste treatment, recycling and burning units-- mostly located in urban areas. Huynh Minh Nhut, Chair of the Southern Urban Area’s and Industrial Zone’s Environment, said that the bad waste treatment has become a burning issue which has hindered the development of the southern region.
it is expected that by 2015, the total waste volume to be created in Mekong Delta would reach 4600 tons per day, while the figure would be 7000 tons per day by 2020.
Meanwhile, Nguyen Kim Hien, Chair of the Northern Urban Area’s and Industrial Zone’s Environment, said that the big industrial developed cities such as Phu Tho, Ha Nam, Hung Yen and Hanoi not only have to face the big volumes of solid domestic waste, but also hazardous waste from industrial zones. The officials in the central region have also complained that it is very difficult to control the solid waste treatment.
Many different waste treatment technologies are being applied in Vietnam, including the landfill and recycling technologies. Besides, waste can be processed into organic fertilizer or energy bullets.
MBT-CD.08 is being applied at the Song Cong waste treatment plant in Thai Nguyen City. The technology allows treating waste in different ways, while most of the waste can be recycled and turned into useful products.
Meanwhile, other technologies have shown their problems, especially the landfill and the old waste treatment technologies being applied in urban areas. The technologies do not require high costs, but they are unhygienic, and that may cause pollution to the environment, especially the pollution to the air, surface and underground water.
Currently, a project on building a solid waste treatment plant and generating power is being developed in Nam Son of Soc Son district in Hanoi, which has the total investment capital of 21 million dollars. This is believed to be a perfect solution to replace backward landfill technologies which can cause pollution to the area. However, the problem is that not every locality could be financially capable enough to build up such as project like the one in Nam Son.
It’s necessary to build up policies for waste treatment
Under the national strategy on treating solid waste in Vietnam, by 2020, 90 percent of solid waste would be collected and treated to protect the environment, of which 85 percent would be recycled and re-used to re-create energy or made organic fertilizer.
Dr Nguyen Huu Dung from the Vietnam Urban Area Environment Institute said that the national strategy shows that in the future, the solid waste treatment would strive to take all possible energy and process solid waste into products, while Vietnam would restrict the dumping.
He went on to say that Vietnam still does not have concrete policies which aim to encourage economic sectors to join the waste treatment; therefore, Vietnam still cannot gather different resources in the society for fighting the environment pollution. Most localities still do not have the plans to treat solid waste and do not pay appropriate attention while programming urban area development.
A lot of waste treatment technologies are believed to be good and suitable to Vietnamese conditions, but they still cannot be applied in other localities. Dung believes that in order to successfully implement the national strategy on treating solid waste, it is necessary for the State to set up a reasonable mechanism to encourage investors. For example, the State should exempt the land use right fee for investors, give preferences to infrastructure investors, or support the research and technology development.
D.D.K
(MONRE)