HCMC estimates $1.25 billion five-year budget to handle solid waste

The estimate is made in a proposal submitted to the city administration by the municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment. The proposal says the funds are needed to have 80 percent of the collected trash recycled by 2025.

Once the city passes the proposal, it will be submitted to the Ministry of Construction and then the prime minister.

The department plans to raise the funds from different sources including the city budget, official development assistance and private investment.

Of the total investment, around VND14.5 trillion will be used to invest in new technologies for treating solid waste, VND5 trillion to build a treatment plant, VND3 trillion to build transfer stations, VND1.2 trillion to organize collection posts and VND500 billion to deploy workers to collect and transfer the waste.

The environment department also targets to have all industrial and medical solid waste collected and treated by 2025. The rate set for construction waste is 90 percent, 60 percent of it recycled.

The department proposal also aims to have 60 percent of families classify their domestic waste at source and increase the rate gradually each year to reach 80 percent by 2025.

It had been announced a week ago that the state-owned Ho Chi Minh City Urban Environment Co., Ltd (Citenco) would fund public service enterprises and private units to collect recyclable trash from residential areas, schools, state agencies, or scrap yards on a pilot scheme over three years.

Garbage including plastic, paper, metal and glass will be collected for recycling via a new network taking shape in the city.

In certain cases, the trash will not be exchanged for money but for essential products or shopping and travel coupons. Those contributing large amounts of recyclable waste would be contracted by Citenco under official management.

In February, HCMC had decided that it will sort trash into just two categories, recyclable and non-recyclable, instead of the previous three: organic, inorganic and recyclable.

The city has been moving away from burying waste and applying waste incineration technology.

With a population of 13 million including migrants, HCMC discharges around 9,300 tons of domestic waste per day, the municipal environment department said last year.