The Hanoi People's Committee has issued a report on garbage treatment solutions in the city to soon complete construction of a waste-to-energy plant on its outskirts, Kinh te & Do thi reported.

Accordingly, environmental sanitation has been improved, bad smell has been reduced, disinfection to kill flies and mosquitoes has been expanded in residential areas.

Besides, the municipal Department of Health has carried out health checks for 8,000 people in the surroundings of the Soc Son Waste Treatment Complex, the report said.

The waste water treatment plants have been operating around the clock to treat about 26,000 cubic meters of waste water. Photo: Kinhtedothi.vn

The waste water treatment plants have been operating around the clock to treat about 26,000 cubic meters of waste water, the report added.

Vice Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Quoc Hung asked the municipal Department of Construction to regularly supervise and urge relevant units in the Soc Son Waste Treatment Complex to ensure safety and efficiency. The complex, built in 1999, is the largest of its kind in Hanoi, spanning over 157 ha. It handles around 5,000 of the 6,500 tons of garbage the city generates each day.

Mr. Hung also requested the People's Committee of Soc Son district to complete site clearance by November 30 and thoroughly handle the remaining issues so that Thien Y Environment Energy Joint Stock Company will soon complete the construction of the waste-to-energy plant project, the largest one in Vietnam, in the district.

Thien Y Environment Energy Joint Stock Company, the project's contractor, is speeding up the works to put the project into operation in February 2021.

Once in service, the plant will have a processing capacity of 4,000 tons of waste per day to help treat litter collected from urban districts. It is expected to reduce waste pollution that affects the lives of locals to below 5% instead from about 80% at present.

However, while the project is expected to come into operation, the most important measure is to minimize the impacts of the waste collection and transportation process and its treatment in a landfill.

An official of the Soc Son district administration said that authorities need to strictly sanction garbage trucks which leak garbage on the road during transportation. Besides, regulations must bed strictly enforced in the process of receiving and treating garbage to limit the impacts on local residents’ lives.

"If the above-mentioned shortcomings are not solved in time, people will get irritated," the official said.

Hanoi currently discharges around 6,000 tons of solid domestic waste daily, 89% of which are buried.