Asian Development Bank (ADB) on January 2 signed a US$100 million loan agreement with China Everbright International Limited (CEIL).

This initiative will support a series of waste-to-energy (WTE) plants in primary and secondary cities in the Mekong Delta region and is the first municipal WTE public-private partnership project in the country.

“The agreement signed today will be a new model to improve solid waste management in cities and also mitigate climate change by reducing methane and increasing energy generation from renewable sources,” said Christopher Thieme, deputy director general of the Private Sector Operations Department at ADB.

Viet Nam generates more than 27.8 million tonnes of waste annually. Most of the waste collected are disposed in landfills in an unhygienic manner. This poses a significant health threat to nearby communities, mostly the urban poor.

One of the most effective ways to treat and manage this increasing quantity of municipal solid waste is through WTE, which can reduce waste volume by 90 per cent and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions while producing energy from the heat during incineration.

ADB’s assistance will support the construction and operation of a series of WTE plants with advanced clean technologies in multiple municipalities in Viet Nam. Each WTE plant will treat urban solid waste and supply electricity to the local electricity grid. CEIL will develop and invest in WTE sub-projects in Viet Nam to facilitate the harmless treatment, reduction and reuse of household waste in cities, and production of clean electricity.

CEIL is one of the world’s leading integrated environmental protection companies, with environmental protection projects spanning across 18 provinces and municipalities in the People’s Republic of China. As of 2017 end, CEIL had 43 WTE projects in operation with a combined processing capacity of 39,100 tonnes a day and generation capacity of some 4,300 gigawatt-hours every year.

ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth and regional integration. — VNS