HCMC – HCMC is weighing the revocation of two waste treatment plant projects in the city’s outlying district of Cu Chi with a total investment of over VND13 trillion as they have lagged behind schedule.

HCMC Vice Chairman Bui Xuan Cuong told the municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment and other relevant agencies to consider revoking the two long-delayed projects at a meeting held in mid-December on solid waste treatment in the city, the local media reported.

Australia’s Trisun Green Energy Corporation and Tasco JSC got approval for investment in the two projects from the municipal government several years ago.

The Australian firm’s waste treatment plant project was set to cover 13 hectares of land at the Phuoc Hiep waste treatment complex and require some US$520 million, or VND12 trillion, in investment. The project, with a capacity of 3,000 tons of waste per day, was licensed in 2017.

Meanwhile, the waste treatment and recycling plant project invested by Tasco at the Tay Bac waste treatment complex, with a total investment of some VND1 trillion, was expected to be completed in 2020, but it failed.

The city discharges some 10,000 tons of garbage a day, with nearly 69% of the total waste going to the landfill, posing a high risk of environmental pollution for nearby residential areas.

HCMC aimed to reduce the percentage of buried waste to 50% and ask waste treatment plants to use the waste-to-energy technology by 2020. However, the city missed the target.