The Department of Natural Resources and Environment in Ho Chi Minh City has proposed the municipal administration spend over VND760 billion (US$32 million) on site clearance and building a road leading to a waste-to-energy (WTE) plant in Cu Chi District.

The department also sought the municipal administration’s nod to combine the site clearance and the construction of the road into a subproject of the WTE plant project, whose total investment is around VND4.820 trillion ($205 million), under the public-private partnership format.

With the amount of over VND760 billion, the percentage of state funding set for this project would not exceed 50 percent as per regulations, the department explained.

This WTE plant project was approved in 2005.

It is one of the WTE plants located in the outlying district of Cu Chi that are being developed by Viet Star JSC, Tam Sinh Nghia Investment and Development JSC, and Tasco Environmental JSC.

Work on these plants began in late 2019 but they have yet to be put into service due to obstacles linked to policies and mechanisms.

Maintaining operations of landfills

Given the negative environmental impacts of landfills such as water and land pollution, trash odors affecting local residents, Ho Chi Minh City mapped out a waste treatment and management plan until 2025, with a vision toward 2050.

As per the plan, some 80 percent of waste in the city will be treated using WTE technology or by recycling by 2025. Landfills will later be phased out.

Meanwhile, waste dumped in Can Gio, another outlying district in the southern metropolis, would be transported to the Green Environment Technology Park in neighboring Long An Province’s Thu Thua District for treatment.

From now till 2025, waste in the city would be treated, mostly buried, at waste treatment complexes in the city’s outlying districts of Binh Chanh and Cu Chi, and at the Green Environment Technology Park in Long An Province.

Between 2025 and 2050, waste would be entirely treated at the Tay Bac waste treatment complex in Cu Chi and the Green Environment Technology Park in Long An, while landfills in the city such as Go Cat and Dong Thanh would be converted into public facilities.

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