Nguyen Trung Viet, director of the Office of Solid Waste Management under the department, told the Daily on Thursday that the city was currently discarding over 700 tons of harmful waste a day, which is twice the amount reported by manufacturers in the city.

The city has seven companies licensed to treat harmful waste, but four of them have recently been caught by local police for using illegal treatment processes, while the remaining three are overloaded, Viet said.

These three companies, namely Moi Truong Xanh, Viet Uc and Quoc Viet, are demanding higher treatment fees under the

current circumstances. Viet said these companies asked for a fee 20 times higher than in the past.

Enterprises have to pay some VND9 million for treating one ton of hazardous mud, or even some VND45 million for recycling a ton of scrap bulbs.

To evade a preventively-high treatment fee, many businesses in the city have illegally discharged waste into the environment, he said.

Hao Duong Tanning Company in Hiep Phuoc Industrial Park, for instance, is stockpiling over 600 tons of harmful mud, and this company has many times been found breaching the environment law.

Some years ago, the city government had a project to develop a common zone for treating waste in Cu Chi District. This 200-hectare area was expected to be a concentrated place for treating harmful waste for the city. However, according to Viet, the project is still unfinished because of site clearance problems.

“The city government has just agreed on a budget for accelerating site clearance for this project, and it will likely take one year and a half more to complete this project,” he said.