City changes tune on solid waste imports

The HCM City People’s Committee has revoked its approval of a plan to import 10,000 tonnes of solid waste meant for testing waste management facilities belonging to a private firm.

The solid waste treatment plant in question is located in the city’s Binh Chanh District.

In an official dispatch sent on Thursday, the city administration directed the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to suspend formalities for the import of plastic and paper waste materials by the Viet Nam Waste Solutions Inc (VWS).

The company runs the 128ha, US$90 million Da Phuoc Integrated Waste Management Facility.

The new document replaces another official dispatch issued on July 12 that carried the HCM City People’s Committee’s approval of a proposal by the department to allow the VWS to import wasted materials for use at its facility.

It also urges relevant agencies to review the city’s waste sorting programme and to report related issues to the HCM City People’s Committee by mid-August. VWS executives could not be reached by Viet Nam News for comment, but they were quoted by the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper as saying they wanted to import waste materials for the test run of their facility because HCM City cannot provide them with sorted solid waste.

The VWS, a subsidiary of California Waste Solutions Inc, began operating the Da Phuoc facility in 2007.

The facilities scope activities include sanitary landfill; composting operations; recycling processes; multiple wastewater treatment processes; landfill gas systems; and environmental monitoring systems.

The facility, which can treat some 3,000 tonnes of waste per da, is the country’s most advnced and largest environmntal foreign investment project.

“I support the city authority’s suspension. It’s a timely decision that addresses concerns of residents,” Pham Van Dong, head of the Economy and Budgets Department under the HCM City People’s Council, told Tuoi Tre.

“In my opinion, waste from the city should be used for the test run of facilities at the Da Phuoc Complex. This would help check if the machines and equipment at the complex can work with waste generated by the city.”

Bui Cach Tuyen, Deputy Minister for Natural Resources and Environment, said in an earlier document sent to the HCM City Department of Natural Resources and Environment that the ministry’s Waste Management and Environment Improvement Bureau did not allow the import of any kind of waste into the country. The bureau supported the recycling and reuse of solid waste discharged in the country towards reducing pollution, he said. — VNS

Tags: solid waste imports