Ho Chi Minh City discharges up to 460 tons of hazardous waste per day, but local waste treatment companies are able to handle only 10 percent of the amount, the Environmental and Natural Resources Institute has warned. The warning was released by Dr. Le Thanh Hai, deputy head of the Institute, at a seminar regarding “the reality of industrial waste and medical waste in Vietnam and how to choose technologies to treat them” held in Ho Chi Minh City last Friday. The volume of hazardous waste that is released from industrial parks, plant and households is reported differently. Some reports estimate it at about 320 tons per day, but according to Hai’s own research, the figure is over 460 tons. Meanwhile, city-based waste treatment plants can handle about 10 percent of the volume, Hai said. According to the Urban Environment Association of Southern Industrial Parks, Vietnam produces more than 156,000 tons of hazardous waste per year, of which 51,000 tons are medical waste from hospitals and health centers. Meanwhile, the country has only 40 units that have been licensed to treat harmful waste. The untreated harmful waste can collect together with industrial waste and part of it could have been discharged at household garbage dumps, Hai said. Another problem is that many businesses are unable to identify harmful waste, which needs to be treated differently with normal waste. In addition, machinery and equipment to analyze hazardous waste, which is classified into 19 groups under Circular 12 of the ministry, are not as effective as expected, Hai said. In general, the technologies being applied to treat harmful waste in Vietnam do not meet required standards, Hai said. There is no regulation on management of non-harmful industrial waste, such as sludge, said the HCMC Urban Environment Company. Therefore, many companies manage to falsely label their harmful sludge as non-harmful so that they are not required by concerned agencies to treat it and thereby save costs.