Only 70% of Hanoi's household waste is collected for treatment, leaving stagnation in most of the capital's rural areas. 

Illegally dumped waste on the outskirts of Ha Noi

Statistics from the city's Natural Resources and Environment Department show that only five out of 18 suburban districts, including Soc Son, Dong Anh, Gia Lam, Me Linh and Thanh Tri, finished transporting all their waste to common waste-treatment plants.

According to the department, stagnant waste along local roads, schools and markets has been blamed for environmental pollution in the suburban districts of Thach That, Quoc Oai and Chuong My.

The department found some communes in suburban districts using ponds or lakes to bury waste, resulting in local water pollution.

Pham Van Khanh, the department's deputy director, said that collecting and transporting waste met difficulties due to tardiness in building landfill sites.

Poor co-operation between managerial agencies and environmental sanitation companies was believed to be adding to the situation, he said.

District-based authorities blamed shortages of land and money on their slowness to build waste treatment sites, he added.

Nguyen Van Doanh, vice chairman of the Chuong My District People's Committee, said that the district had been building temporary landfill sites in the communes of Dong Son, Tan Tien and Tran Phu with the city's support of VND100 million (USD4,800) for each site.

"But that is just a short-term solution. In the long run, we'll face difficulties due to having no money to build waste treatment plants," Doanh said.

According to Khanh, to solve the problem, the city committee should order its units to speed up the progress of building common waste treatment plants in the districts of Son Tay and Soc Son.

As planned, the city targets to build more waste treatment plants with hygienic burying technology by 2015.

The city has called for investment to build these sites; however, no investors were ready to pour money into such projects due to slow payback.

Besides, the cost for treating waste is also a problem, costing USD15 per tonne, which the city could not afford.

In the meantime, it was not easy to raise waste collection fees higher than VND1,500 per person when rural people remained poor, Khanh said.