Household waste increases, making treatment a difficult problem

Every day, the whole country generates nearly 70,000 tons of household waste, of which Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City alone account for 23%. However, waste treatment infrastructure is still backward, and the budget for payment far exceeds the collection fee. To overcome this, many localities plan to increase fees, while at the same time encouraging waste sorting at source and investing in good technology.

Increase garbage collection fees

Hanoi is preparing to drastically adjust the fee for collecting household waste. According to the proposal, the current fee of 6,000 VND/person/month in wards and 3,000 VND/person/month in communes will be raised to 21,000 VND/person/month from 2025 and continue to increase to 43,000 VND/person/month in 2026, which is 7 times higher than the current level.

The reason for the fee increase is that the current collection rate is too low, not enough to cover actual costs. In 2024, Hanoi's total garbage collection fee will only reach nearly 568 billion VND, while the cost of garbage treatment and collection will be up to 2,300 billion VND, or 4 times the revenue. Compared to many other localities, this fee is still much lower, for example, Ho Chi Minh City is applying 84,000 VND/household/month.

Other localities have also applied higher collection rates, such as: Hai Phong 40,000 VND, Hung Yen from 40,000-60,000 VND, Da Nang is 30,000 VND. However, many people think that the proposal to collect garbage fees per capita is unfair because some families discharge a lot and some families discharge a little, the levels are different.

Garbage collection in Hanoi

Responding to the press's question on September 4 about this issue, Mr. Ho Kien Trung, Deputy Director of the Department of Environment (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) said that in the world , there are many different ways to calculate waste fees such as based on volume, weight, water usage, and even electricity consumption. However, the common goal of all models is to accurately reflect the cost of waste treatment. Collecting waste fees per capita as proposed by Hanoi is also one of the ways to calculate, but it is necessary to ensure the principle of calculating correctly and fully the amount of waste generated.

Good technology is needed

Regarding the situation of organic waste from food accounting for 60%-61% of total daily household waste, but not being treated effectively, Mr. Ho Kien Trung said that the main reason is the lack of synchronous collection infrastructure. The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment encourages localities to coordinate and support businesses to utilize organic waste to produce biomass electricity and organic fertilizer. The list of businesses with good technology will be provided by the ministry so that localities can proactively contact and cooperate.

Chairing the meeting on September 4, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Phung Duc Tien admitted that the problem of treating household waste has been raised for many years but is still difficult to solve. According to Mr. Phung Duc Tien, the biggest difficulty now is waste treatment technology. He cited the example of many localities such as Bac Ninh province having strong financial resources, but not knowing where to buy appropriate technology.

The Deputy Minister requested that functional units support the introduction of effective technology to localities. At the same time, localities also need to consider the unit price for waste treatment. According to Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien, the unit price for waste treatment is currently too low, causing many service providers to complain. This is one of the barriers that prevents investment in modern technology from being deployed as strongly as expected.

Speaking further to the press, Mr. Ho Kien Trung said that currently, every day, the country generates about 69,400 tons of waste, of which 91% is treated. In urban areas alone, the generated amount is about 37,259 tons/day and the treatment rate is 97.28%. In rural areas, the generated amount is about 32,150 tons/day with a treatment rate of only 80.5% (of which landfilling still accounts for 59.32% - a decrease of 30% compared to 2012).

In particular, Hanoi alone generates about 7,300 tons of garbage per day and Ho Chi Minh City about 14,000 tons of garbage per day (including the old and newly merged areas). The total amount of garbage per day of the two cities accounts for 23% of the country's total waste.

The work of classifying domestic solid waste is currently only at a small scale and on a pilot basis. Some localities have piloted the collection of service fees for the collection, transportation and treatment of domestic solid waste based on the mass or volume of the classified waste. Some provinces and cities have issued temporary unit prices for the collection, transportation and treatment of domestic solid waste in urban areas, for example, Ho Chi Minh City has applied specific service prices.

Mr. Ho Kien Trung said that in Ho Chi Minh City, solid waste is currently treated by sanitary landfills, incineration without energy recovery and compost production. Ho Chi Minh City aims to have at least 80% of domestic waste treated by modern technology such as incineration for power generation and recycling by 2025. The further direction is that by 2030, this rate will reach 100%.

Thanh Hoa Waste Treatment Plant - Long An (Tay Ninh): Switching from incineration to incineration for power generation

On September 4, Mr. Vo Minh Thanh, Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Tay Ninh province, said that the Thanh Hoa - Long An Waste Treatment Plant (Tay Ninh) is converting its incineration technology to electricity generation, increasing its capacity from 300 tons/day to 500 tons/day, helping to reduce the amount of waste that must be buried, limit environmental pollution, and at the same time create economic value from renewable energy. According to the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Tay Ninh province, every day, a large amount of solid waste (waste) is generated in Tay Ninh province with a total collected, transported, and treated volume of about 1,150 tons.

Tay Ninh province has implemented many plans to comprehensively innovate waste treatment, in conjunction with the National Environmental Protection Plan for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2050. In particular, the National Solid Waste Treatment Area (200ha in Tan Long commune) will be invested into a comprehensive treatment center, receiving domestic waste, industrial waste, hazardous waste, sludge, etc., with modern treatment technology, gradually reducing the landfill rate.

The province will continue to improve and expand investment in upgrading the infrastructure of the remaining waste treatment plants, and at the same time build more waste treatment plants according to the approved plan; prioritize waste incineration technology to generate electricity, biological treatment (compost), limit landfill, and gradually eliminate direct landfill without treatment.

NGOC PHUC

ANGEL

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/rac-thai-sinh-hoat-tang-nan-giai-bai-toan-xu-ly-post811655.html