Authorities in Ho Chi Minh City have increased the number of waste-to-energy facilities dedicated to burning garbage related to COVID-19 treatment that is surging at a rapid rate.

COVID-19 hospitals, quarantine facilities, and locked-down areas in the southern city discharge nearly 40 metric tons of garbage a day, according to data Ho Chi Minh City Urban Environment Co. Ltd. (CITENCO) supplied in early June.

More than one month later, treatment plants in the metropolis have had to deal with 49 metric tons of COVID-19 waste a day, according to the municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

Of the 49 metric tons, CITENCO handles 21 metric tons at its Dong Thanh site in Hoc Mon District and seven metric tons at the Binh Hung Hoa incineration plant in Binh Tan District.

The company has tested running an incinerator with a capacity of 14 metric tons a day. But this trial incinerator has already been overloaded.

City authorities have mobilized the Vietnam Australia Environmental Joint Stock Company to participate in burning COVID-19 garbage with a capacity of about five to seven metric tons per day.

The city’s environment department has proposed that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Vietnam Environment Administration call on more units to help process the accumulated coronavirus-related garbage.

In the immediate future, the department is expecting that Moc An Chau Logistics Corporation and Green Saigon Co. Ltd., each of which is operating two incinerators with a capacity of 1,000kg per hour in Ho Chi Minh City, will partake in the COVID-19 waste treatment as well.

Ho Chi Minh City currently has more than 2,020 medical isolation areas and about 25 hospitals for COVID-19 treatment.

It has been Vietnam’s largest epicenter in the ongoing wave of coronavirus infections with 35,984 cases.

The country had documented 60,180 COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday morning, with 11,047 recoveries and 334 deaths.

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