THE COLLECTION AND DISPOSAL OF WASTE IN THE AREA OF THAI NGUYEN CITY

During the developing process, the economic production activities have produced a great deal of waste, especially harmful waste. In Viet Nam in general and Thai Nguyen in particular, due to the diversity and rapid development of various types of industry, the hazardous wastes that are mentioned above become more and more. The more wastes are generated; the more serious threats affect environment and human health.

I. Situation

1. Household waste

The total amount of waste generated in Thai Nguyen city is about 45 thousand tons annually (the average amount of waste is from 0.4 to 0.5 kg / person / day), including the number of students in the city. The amount of waste is collected and treated by sanitary burial, which rises up to 90-100 tons per day, accounting for about 75-80 percent of total amount of waste generation. 

Household waste is thrown by the roadside

Currently, 23/26 wards and villages have rubbish collecting team or were collected garbage. In the regions of wards and villages where garbage is collected, the household waste collection rate is about 90 percent, which mainly concentrated in the urban area and a small part in the suburban areas.Most of the amount of generating household waste is not collected and treated in rural areas. Waste is often buried under land in the gardens or thrown into the roadside, drains, and edge of the rivers, which causes environmental pollution.

2. Industrial and constructional waste

According to the report of Thai Nguyen Steel Company, the company release about from 60.000 to 70.000 tons of industrial waste yearly. The composition of industrial waste includes the variety of coal slag, blast-furnace slag, building material waste, metal ingot, scrap-iron, calcium carbide residue… A small portion of this waste is recovered for sale to other foundations as raw materials while most of the rest are buried in the grounds around factories.

According to the survey results, it is estimated that each day there is about 2,500 tons of industrial waste generated in Thai Nguyen city. Overall, this industrial waste is not sorted, but it is treated by on-site disposal or razed to the ground, which affects beautiful appearance and industrial hygiene.

Constructional waste tends to increase in volume because of the fast urbanization speed. It is estimated that the total amount of constructional waste generated in the city is about 1,000 tons per day. The collection and transportation of constructional waste of the large building projects are carried out better than the small ones. Most of the constructional waste is used for leveling the low-lying areas, and all the rest of it is poured controllably out vacant grounds or on the edge of routes.

3. Hazardous medical waste

The amount of hazardous medical waste generated in the city is estimated at 4,000 kg / month (accounting for 10% of all medical waste types). The majority of hazardous medical waste is generated from large hospitals such as Iron and Steel Hospital, Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Hospital, and Thai Nguyen Central General Hospital and A hospital.

II. Solutions

For each specific type of waste, the solution will be treated separately, such as:

1. For household waste

The whole amount of collected garbage in Thai Nguyen city was transported to Da Mai landfill of Tan Cuong village for burial Technology of waste burying is applied in Da Mai landfill as follows: they transport garbage to landfill by garbage pressing truck or garbage crane, and then at landfill they use bulldozer for backfilling and spray EM to deodorize, and backfilling cycle is done once six months. The company has not made the classification of waste before land filling. The area of Da Mai landfill is 25 hectares, including about 20 ha for garbage burial; splitting into 02 stages. Phase number I uses about 10 hectares including 05 landfill cells, each cell has an area of ​​02 ha. Each cell receives about 125 thousand tons of garbage. There are systems to collect and take leachate into waste handling system for leachate treatment, which ensures satisfactory before discharge into the receiving water.

The model "household waste incinerator" in the city area

However, due to the volume of landfill waste is not great, so it’s difficult to design the landfill gas collection system. The entire amount of landfill gas generated is distributed freely into the surrounding air environment, causing air pollution.

2. For medical waste

The entire amount of medical waste generated from hospitals are collected and burned in handling medical waste incinerators. Currently, Steel hospital and Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Hospital have medical waste incinerators with the capacity of 30 kg / batch placed in the hospital. With the amount of hazardous medical waste treated on the spot is about 800kg/month. The incinerators are operated regularly.

In addition, medical wastes generated from the Central General Hospital, Eye Hospital, A Hospital, Center General Hospital, and the Nursing Hospital are collected and transported to Da Mai landfill for burning by MTV Environment and Urban Projects Limited Company.

However, the collection, transportation and disposal of hazardous medical waste in the area of Thai Nguyen city as well as the other areas in the province are still insufficient. MTV Environment and Urban Projects Limited Company is the unit of collection, transport and disposal of hazardous medical waste without function of collection, transportation and disposal of hazardous medical waste. The company currently manages one medical incinerator which is transferred from Thai Nguyen Central General Hospital since the previous incinerator was operated in the middle area of downtown, Phan Dinh Phung ward, causing air pollution for surrounding areas.

3. For industrial waste

Currently, in the area of Thai Nguyen city there is no landfill for industrial waste treatment that is built in accordance with technical requirements. 

Besides, in order to control and limit the pollution of the waste, Thai Nguyen Provincial People’s Committee work in collaboration with the departments and agencies in the area of Thai Nguyen province to found the project, scheme to provide the best solutions for waste disposal in the city, such as:

"Environment Protection Scheme in the period of accelerated industrialization and modernization period between 2007 and 2010 in Thai Nguyen province." Thai Nguyen province continues to promote four-year implementation of environmental protection, a number of contaminated sites have been treated, many establishments causing serious environmental pollution have completed waste management plan, and the environmental quality in many areas have been improved. Besides the achievements, there are some pressing environmental problems that have not been fixed; the observance of the environment protection law of the enterprises has been improved, yet it is just the nature of coping; violations become more and more complicated; environmental pollution is increasing and difficult to control.

Thus, in order to prevent and control environmental pollution before the impact of the economic development process, there is a must that all levels, sectors, organizations, businesses, residential communities contribute to this process. Thai Nguyen City Environmental Protection Scheme (LEP) in the period from 2011 to 2015 will focus on solving the problem requires urgent environmental priorities and mobilizing the participation of all levels, sectors, agencies and organizations and individuals to protect the environment, indicating clearly the duties of branches, levels, institutions and enterprises to actively develop and coordinate implementation.

Focusing on solving the urgent environmental problems of the province in the period from 2011 to 2015 including:

- Environmental pollution due to solid domestic, industrial, and hazardous waste

- Environmental pollution in industrial areas, mining areas, urban and residential areas. 

- Handling the establishments causing serious environmental pollution and displacement in the industrial zones.

However, in order to found the waste treatment projects causing environmental pollution, it needs further synchronization attention of agencies, departments and agencies of the city. There should be an investment of funds for implementation of projects to achieve the ultimate goal of the projects proposed.

III. Conclusion

 Waste is currently one of the major causes of environmental pollution. Solid waste management is one of the pressing issues in urban and industrial areas in the city. Currently, the issue of environmental protection and waste management is increasingly cared by state, social and community. However, if management and the reuse are reasonable, household waste is also a cheap and diversified source of raw materials that brings economic benefits and contributes greatly to environmental protection and saving resources. Thai Nguyen City has high urbanization speed, and people's lives are increasingly improved, physical demands of life and resource use are growing, which brings about increase in solid waste in general and household waste in particular. Therefore, the management and disposal system are becoming urgent environmental problems of Thai Nguyen city.