Several of the 10 waste treatment plants now under construction in HCM City are expected to begin operating this year, according to the city's Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
One of the plants, being built by the Viet Nam Solid Waste Management Company, will have a capacity of 500 tonnes of compost fertiliser a day.
Vietstar Company's compost-treatment plant with a capacity of 600 tonnes a day in the first phase will also open this year.
Next year, Tam Sinh Nghia Company is expected to put into operation its micro-organic fertiliser processing plant, with a daily capacity of 1,000 tonnes.
A solid waste treatment plant with a capacity of 500 tonnes a day now being built by the Thanh Cong Company will operate in 2012.
Nearly 6,400 tonnes of household waste a day is produced in HCM City; 80-90 per cent of the rubbish could be recycled into fertiliser or burned to generate electricity.
All household waste is buried in the city's two main rubbish dumps, Da Phuoc in Binh Chanh District and Phuoc Hiep in Cu Chi District. It cost the city about VND600 billion (US$33 million) a year for the task of collection, transport and treatment of household rubbish.
Although the city began to offer preferential policies on land and taxes for investment in waste treatment systems 10 years ago, it still does not have an operating rubbish treatment plant.
Nguyen Van Phuoc, deputy director of the department, said large capital required for investing in such, the recent recession, and cumbersome investment procedures had made the process of building rubbish treatment plants slow.
Because the city's programme of classifying rubbish into types by households had not been implemented effectively, recycling rubbish into compost fertiliser was proceeding slowly, Phuoc said.
In 2005 the city launched a pilot programme for sorting household rubbish into types in District 6; it then expanded the programme to districts 5 and 10. If the programme was carried out effectively, the city would save VND1 billion a day. However, sorted household rubbish was often mixed with other trash.