Recycled tiles are processed from plastic waste at EverGreen Labs company in Da Nang. The city plans to operate the first pilot plastic waste treatment project for recycling single-use plastic into useable products. (Photo: VNA) Da Nang (VNS/VNA)- The central city of Da Nang’s Environment and Urban Company (URENCO), in cooperationwith EverGreen Labs Consultant and EverGreen Social ventures, will start apilot project on plastic waste recycling in the city later this year.
URENCO said the project willcover 300sq.m at Khanh Son dump – the largest overloaded and polluted dump inthe city – with a designed capacity to process 150 tonnes of plastic wasteeach month.
According to the city’s Departmentof Natural Resources and Environment, the pilot project will be operating in 12months for evaluation before expanding the recycling operation.
The project would be builtover three months with an investment of 100,000 USD, URENCO said atthe signing ceremony earlier this week.
It’s the first projectspecialising in recycling nylon bags, single-use plastic straws and cups, andStyrofoam, with hi-tech incineration equipment.
The processed plastic wastecould be used to make public or hotel trash bins, planks, gym polesor climbing boards, panels for furniture, as well as floor tiles.
Jan Zellmann of Germany, who isthe vice director and co-founder of EverGreen Labs in Da Nang, said his companyoffered a solution to recycle waste at waste disposal depots.
He said waste pickers onlycollected valuable waste including cans, plastic bottles, paper andmetal, but they refused to take glass, foam, single-use cups and strawsbecause they can't be sold.
Jan said his company hadto buy the low-value waste at the same price as saleable waste fromgarbage collectors.
A bio-tech start-upbusiness in the city currently recycled about 100 tonnes ofhousehold organic waste into 2,000 litres of bio-dish soap each day.
Last year, a zero plastic-wasteocean project in Da Nang had helped collect and classify 7.7 tonnes of plasticwaste and nearly 200,000 cans and 14 tonnes of paper, as well as fourtonnes of other valuable waste, in the two coastal districts of Son Traand Thanh Khe. The sorting of the waste earned 4,300 USD.
Nearly 140,000 local residentsreceived guidance on waste classification at source, while 22,000 primary andsecondary school students learned about waste sorting and reduction.
More than 700 fishermen,traders and organisations joined the communications effort on wastereduction, and 77 owners of fishing boats have committed notto dump plastic waste into the sea.
Da Nang is the first urbanarea in the country to promote "no plastic bottles" atState offices and buildings, while 30 milk-tea shops have committed tousing bio-straws and not use single-use plastic cups.
Vice Director of the municipalDepartment of Natural Resources and Environment Dinh Quang Cuong said 75 percentof State buildings in the central city stopped using plastic bottles from 2018,and more recycling bins were installed at public sites.
A ‘5 R’ communication campaign,“Recycle, Reduce, Re-use, Refuse and Repair", is being carried out inthe community, schools, residential quarters and offices.
The city with a population of 1million released 1,200 tonnes of garbage, of which 22 percent was plastic, and55 percent was household organic waste, each day.
An investment of 172 billionVND (7.5 million USD) has been arranged for building depots and 4,000 garbagetrucks in reducing daily waste downtown.
In 2016, Da Nang invested 19million USD to build the first waste treatment plant with a capacity of 700tonnes per day, but it failed to process any rubbish due to poor technology./.
VNA
