According to data from the Vietnam Environment Administration, in 2015, the volume of solid waste in urban areas in Vietnam reached 37,000 tonnes a day, including 5,500 tonnes in Hanoi mainly treated by landfill technology (3,700 tonnes a day). With its bold investment for the Son Tay waste treatment facility with a daily capacity of 700 tonnes a day, using modern heath-recovering technology, Thang Long Environmental Services Joint Stock Company can handle approximately 10 percent of waste in Hanoi - the capital of Vietnam. In an interview granted to Vietnam Business Forum, Mr Nguyen Phuc Thanh, Chairman and CEO of Thang Long Environmental Services Joint Stock Company, said, “Urban waste in cities in Vietnam is a risk. To treat waste and address environmental pollution in a sustainable manner, authorities and localities need more aggressive actions and policies to deal with urban waste.” Ngo Khuyen reports.
As a leader of a pioneering company in environmental services, evidenced by the construction of a modern waste treatment facility, how do you assess the waste treatment situation in Vietnam’s cities now?
Along with the process of national industrialisation and modernisation, urban zones in Vietnam have become more populous because migrants from rural areas prefer going to work in urban zones. This process has formed many large populous urban zones and small urban zones near new industrial zones. More residents with better livelihoods will discharge more waste. According to statistics, waste volume increases 10-15 percent annually. Every urban resident on average disposed 0.5 kilograms of waste a day in 2005, but the volume jumped to 0.8 kilograms in 2015. The exponential increase of solid waste has led to complete system overloading, from collection to disposal.
The degree of overloading gets worse when waste treatment solutions are slowly invested and changed. Most municipalities are still using outdated landfill technologies which require large amounts of land and a decomposing period of 150-300 years. Pollution caused by insects and leachate has major adverse impacts on the environment and surrounding residents.
Following policies on socialisation of environmental protection and urban waste treatment, in recent years, many businesses have invested in large waste treatment facilities using different technologies. In 2012, your company invested to build a large-scale waste incineration facility. Could you please talk about your facility’s differences from the rest in the country?
In Vietnam, some waste disposal facilities were funded by ODA capital, socialised capital, State budget capital and local budget capital, among others, with various daily capacities, ranging from 50 - 100 tonnes 2,000 - 5,000 tonnes. The waste treatment facility invested by Thang Long Environmental Services Joint Stock Company, powered by heat-recovering technology, went into operation in 2012. As of the end of the second quarter of 2015, the plant processed 290,000 tonnes of waste meeting QCVN:19/2009/BTNMT standard. This was the first scientific and technological product successfully applied on the large scale in Vietnam.
Unlike technologies used in other waste treatment facilities in Vietnam, the plant of the company uses heat-recovering technology for unclassified waste in Vietnam and for manual garbage collection methods. The technology is also suitable with the monsoon tropical climate of Vietnam with over 140 days of rain a year.
Besides, materials and equipment of the plant were chosen to suit waste components, corrosive environments and high-intensity operating conditions (24 hours a day). Moreover, heat-recovering incineration technology has many outstanding advantages like clean heat recovery capacity to increase the calorific value of garbage from 900 kcal per kg to 1,700 kcal per kg, enough for garbage to be sell-burnt. Heat exchangers are more environment-friendly and water-saving equipment than heat exchangers in other facilities. In addition, the investment rate of the Son Tay facility is equal to 40 percent of other similar units in Vietnam,
Would you talk about some production and business indicators of the company in 2015?
With seven member companies and two affiliated units, Thang Long Environmental Services Joint Stock Company is engaged in many business fields like urban sanitation maintenance services; urban lighting; import, production and supply of equipment and specialised vehicles; EPC contractor; and waste treatment. In the last five years, the company's sales rise an average of 20-25 percent a year, expected to reach over VND500 billion in 2015. Currently, the company has participated in three scientific and technological research programmes, including a national scientific research programme on centralised large-scale waste incineration, a scientific research programme for mechanised waste collection in place of manual collection methods, and a research programme on completion of technology for collection, transport and treatment of rural waste. In addition, the company is an EPC contractor of two waste treatment deals valued nearly VND250 billion.
From the business perspective, do you have any suggestions for authorities on environmental protection mechanisms and policies?
First of all, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and related agencies should have regulations on conditions for units using industrial methods (not landfill) to directly collect waste from households to create a synchronous chain in collection, transportation and treatment of waste to eliminate factors that affect the weight and composition of garbage like mud, soil, construction waste and rainwater and gradually classify wastes at source. Besides, central and local authorities should specify methods for calculating waste disposal costs. Last but not least, authorities should have counterpart capital for investors’ waste treatment facilities to help them have enough financial sources for their projects.
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