HCMC begins work on first hazardous waste recycling plant

The plant will recycle and treat waste from factories, laboratories, health facilities, animal farms, etc. with thermal technology (incinerator).

About 70-90 percent of the input waste will be repurposed into raw materials, local reports said without elaborating. Budget figures for the project have not been revealed.

The plant covers an area of 17 hectares in the Da Phuoc Solid Waste Treatment Complex in Binh Chanh District.

The city has more than 2,000 factories and 10,000 small and medium production facilities.

It produces nearly 2,500 tons of industrial waste a day, of which hazardous waste makes up 400 tons (16 percent). By 2025, this waste volume is predicted to increase to 3,500 tons a day, of which 1,000 tons will be hazardous waste.

Besides centralized waste treatment complexes like Da Phuoc and Tay Bac Cu Chi treatment area in Cu Chi District, Saigon currently has 12 licensed hazardous waste treatment facilities with a total capacity of 250 tons a day.

Their operations are independent, of small scale with a combined processing capacity of only 50 percent of what the city generates. The remaining untreated hazardous waste is either stored at the source or collected and transported to other provinces for treatment.

The large-scale industrial and hazardous waste treatment plant in Da Phuoc is expected to expand the scale and capacity of HCMC in waste treatment.

The plant is the third solid waste treatment the city has begun building this year.

In August, two waste-to-energy plants were given greenlight which are set to go into operation in the next two years.

Statistics from the department show that the city collect more than 9,200 tons of waste every day.

Most of it is buried in landfills, causing pollution and the stench to spread to nearby residential areas.

The city aims to reduce the landfill rate by 50 percent by 2020. It has also instructed waste treatment plants to start generating electricity. An estimated 98 MW could be produced in 2020 and 2021, increasing to 198 MW by 2030