The Hanoi’s government is responsible for addressing legitimate petitions of the people living near Soc Son Waste Treatment Complex to handle the city’s garbage issues, Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Vuong Dinh Hue has said.

Hue was speaking at a working visit to the inspection site in the city's outskirt district of Soc Son on December 3.

The residents living near the Soc Son Waste Treatment Complex, the largest of its kind in Hanoi, have been suffering contamination from the landfill for years. The resettlement plan has been delayed as there is not yet compensation.

Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Vuong Dinh Hue inspects the Soc Son Waste Treatment Complex. Photo: Thanh Hai/Kinhtedothi.vn

Hue said that the city has compensation plan for local residents but they did not agree because it is unsatisfactory.

The Hanoi Party chief has asked authorities to thoroughly solve the issues related to the Soc Son Waste Treatment Complex soon.

Regarding the safe water supply for affected people, Mr. Hue stated that the Hanoi People's Committee must immediately consider solutions to upgrade the capacity of three existing water purifiers in Soc Son district, or build a new one to supply clean water for the locals.

"The authorities need to urgently raise the treatment capacity of the landfill, and speed up the progress of the Soc Son waste to power plant project to put it into operation in early 2021," Mr. Hue stressed.

He has assigned Soc Son district's authorities to provide free health insurance for 7,000 households affected by contamination (in a radius of 1,000 meters), as requested by the locals

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This aims to soon complete site clearance and handle the remaining issues so that the construction of the waste-to-energy plant project, the largest one in Vietnam, in the district will soon come into operation.

The plant was designed to have a processing capacity of 4,000 tons of waste per day.

The Soc Son Waste Treatment Complex, covering over 157 ha, was built in 1999 in Nam Son, Bac Son and Hong Ky communes. The complex handles around 5,000 of the 6,500 tons the city generates each day. The other 1,500 tons are treated at the Xuan Son landfill in Son Tay Town and other small waste treatment facilities.