Director of the HCM City Department of Natural Resources and Environment Nguyễn Toàn Thắng answers questions raised by waste collection cooperatives in the session. — Photo sggp.org.vn

HCM CITY — HCM City aims by 2025 to recycle at least 80 percent of household solid waste into power.

The plan was announced at the monthly ‘Citizens Ask – Government Answers’ session with the theme, ‘Managing Household Solid Waste Collection and Treatment’.

The session was held by the City's People Council and HCMC Information & Communications Department on Sunday.

At present, the city has received six project proposals with a total handling capacity of about 10,500 tonnes of waste.

In addition, at the session, Deputy Director of Global Green and Clean Environment Technology Co. Ltd. Nguyễn Thành Trung said that even after transforming into a business or cooperative, individual private garbage collection teams still tend to maintain their usual separate operations at inconsistent times with different service fees.

This makes management difficult for the Government.

More importantly, waste collection is a labour-intensive job with a shift of 8-12 hours per day, yet the salary is not satisfactory, at VNĐ7-8 million (US$300-340) a month. That explains why there has been a reduction in human resources at Trung's company from 60 employees before the pandemic to only 45 now. 

Director of the HCMC Department of Natural Resources and Environment Nguyễn Toàn Thắng said that it is necessary now to support these companies to hire more people and train them properly.

Thắng said that the city has financially supported 68 projects, with a value of over VNĐ80 billion ($3.4 million), to merge individual private garbage collection teams together. Since 2017, 2,700 such teams have been brought together to establish 250 legal entities, with more than 20,000 workers. — VNS