Hanoi Party chief requests urgent solution of garbage crisis

The Hanoi government is responsible for addressing legitimate petitions of the people in Soc Son district to handle the city’s garbage emergency, Kinh Te & Do Thi quoted Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Vuong Dinh Hue as saying at a meeting on October 25.

Mr. Hue convened the meeting after residents nearby blocked roads leading to the dump in Soc Son district, 25 km north of Hanoi's center, in protest of inadequate compensation and resettlement delays. The protest has left garbage-laden pushcarts stranded across the city for the past two days.

Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Vuong Dinh Hue speaks at the meeting. Photo: Kinhtedothi.vn

The residents have been living with the landfill contamination for years. The plan to resettle them has been delayed as compensation is still no where to be seen.

According to the Hanoi leader, the people living by the dump have given up their land for environmental sanitation for the whole city. However, up to now, their petitions for relocation has not been properly addressed, which proved that the municipal authorities and relevant agencies have not fulfilled their responsibilities and loose coordination among them.

The Hanoi Party chief has asked authorities to provide free health insurance for people affected by contamination (in a radius of 1,000 meters), as requested by the people.

Regarding the safe water supply for affected people, Mr. Hue stated that the Hanoi People's Committee must immediately consider solutions to upgrade the capacity of three existing water purifiers in Soc Son district, or build a new one to supply clean water for the locals.

The authorities need to urgently raise the treatment capacity of the landfill, speed up the progress of the Soc Son waste to power plant project to put it into operation in early 2021, Mr. Hue stressed.

He has assigned Soc Son district's authorities to persuade citizens to remove the roadblocks because this is a legal violation.

This is the second time in 2020 and the fifteenth since the dump was put into operation that people have prevented garbage trucks from entering the landfill, resulting in thousands of tons of garbage piling up along streets in the capital city. Thus, these days, Hanoi is once again plunged in a garbage emergency.

The Nam Son waste treatment complex, covering over 157 ha, was built in 1999 in Nam Son, Bac Son and Hong Ky communes. The complex handles around 5,000 of the 6,500 tons the city generates each day. The other 1,500 tons are treated at the Xuan Son landfill in Son Tay Town and other small waste treatment facilities.