Waste Management World-Feb 8

Hong Kong based environmental services firm, China Everbright International Limited, has secured a $100 million loan from the Asian Development Bank to help a develop a series of municipal waste to energy plants in primary and secondary cities in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.

This initiative will be the first municipal waste to energy public-private partnership project in the country.

Vietnam currently generates more than 27.8 million tons of waste annually. Most of the waste collected is disposed in landfill in an unsanitary manner. This poses a significant health threat to nearby communities, mostly urban poor.

According to Everbright, one of the most effective ways to treat and manage this increasing quantity of municipal solid waste is through waste to energy.

“The agreement signed today will be a new model to improve solid waste management in cities, and also mitigate climate change by reducing methane and increasing energy generation from renewable sources,” said Christopher Thieme, deputy director general of the Private Sector Operations Department at ADB.

ADB’s assistance will support the construction and operation of a series of waste to energy plants with advanced clean technologies in multiple municipalities in Viet Nam.

Each plant will treat municipal solid waste and supply electricity to the local electricity grid. China Everbirght said that it will develop and invest in subprojects in to facilitate the treatment, reduction, and reuse of household waste in Viet Nam’s cities.

China Everbright added that as of end of 2017 it had 43 waste to energy projects in operation with a combined processing capacity of 39,100 tons per day.