BKEET steams ahead with waste treatment

Core waste treatment technology

According to a report of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), about 35,000 tonnes of solid waste are produced in urban areas daily and another 34,000 tonnes of solid waste in rural areas. Major cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City produce 7,000 to 8,000 tonnes of solid waste.

The VITE medical waste incinerator at Vinh Long isolation area

However, waste incineration and recycling technology in Vietnam remains limited and only 85 percent of waste is currently being treated, mainly with landfill technology that requires extensive land and seriously pollutes the land, water and air, especially in big cities.

“Many people think that Vietnam’s domestic waste treatment technology cannot meet requirements or must be imported. But I can affirm that, the technology issue has been basically solved. BKEET is a typical example of a science and technology enterprise holding core solid waste treatment technology with heat recovery,” said BKEET Director Dam Thi Lan.

Domestically made technology

As a leading enterprise offering core technologies for domestic, industrial and medical solid waste treatment, BKEET has researched, designed, and manufactured incinerators for different capacities. At Techmart 2012, the BD-Alpha domestic waste incinerator was awarded the Golden cup, and won the Vietnam Environmental Award of the MONRE in 2013, and a certificate of merit from the Hanoi City People's Committee.

Also in 2013, Dam Thi Lan and her colleagues launched the CONI industrial solid waste incinerator, which burns mainly nylon and industrial rags. The heat generated is then used by boilers in paper and textile factories. The first models were tested at Dong Tien paper factory (Binh Duong Province) and AFC paper mill (Ho Chi Minh City).

The domestic solid waste incinerator in Nghi Son Town, Thanh Hoa Province

Currently, BD-Alpha domestic waste incinerators are used in over 30 provinces and many islands with improved operating capacity of up to 10 tonnes of waste per hour.

According to the Vietnam Technological Innovation Support Fund, these domestic waste incinerators are environmentally friendly. However, Lan urged state support policies to make investment in the product more effective. Specifically, capital for incinerators with a capacity of 50-300 tonnes a day using saturated steam from industrial parks (IPs) or factories is mobilized from the IPs or private businesses. But for those with capacity of less than 50 tonnes a day, state support is needed for the entire infrastructure such as factories, equipment and machinery.

Recycled and reused materials, products from the solid waste treatment facilities also need support to be commercialized.