Vietstar’s name is soiled

a subsidiary of United States-based Lemma international Inc. and owner of Vietstar solid waste treatment factory, burying nearly 2,500 tonnes of untreated waste inside its precinct.

Three kilometres from Vietstar solid waste treatment plant, residents living in the area suffer from an offensive smell.

The $63 million facility is the largest in Southeast Asia and is designed to treat 1,200 tonnes of solid waste per day. Within the first phase, the plant handles 600 tonnes of solid waste per day. The investor plans to put the second phase into operation in September.

Ho Thi Xuan Huong, a resident from My Khanh A hamlet, told VIR the offensive smell started since Vietstar Company officially put its solid waste treatment factory into operation on May 1, 2010.

The smell was stronger at 6pm each day when the winds changed direction, Huong said. Actually, residents living near the treatment plant complained the offensive smell began 18 days after it started operating.

During a meeting at the Thai My commune People’s Committee, many people complained that the facility’s operation not only discharged offensive smells, but also created conditions for flies, mosquitoes and other harmful insects to multiply.

“There are so many flies and mosquitoes resulting from the environmental pollution action that we found life here very uncomfortable, for instance when eating,” said My Khanh A commune’s Tran Bich Hanh.

Residents also started suffering skin-diseases and respiratory diseases they rarely suffered in the past. People’s committee statistics showed that more than 50 people caught the above-mentioned diseases during the past three months.

The pollution is more dangerous as Nguyen Van Binh, vice chairman of Thai My commune People’s Committee said, residents’ water sources, mostly collected from wells, could be polluted by Vietstar’s waste storage area.

“Waste water spilled over from the plant into residential areas,” he said, adding that waste water could infiltrate into canals because Vietstar did not build a dike surrounding the storage zone.

In recent months, residents living near the plant were concerned that they could not use wells, their main living water source, any longer.

But, while residents are concerned about the environment pollution, environmental police on August 20, 2010 detected the company burying nearly 2,500 tonnes of untreated waste, including nylon bags which are not biodegradable, inside its precinct.

The environment authority also found that Vietstar had not applied measures to treat waste water from the buried waste.

Vietstar’s leaders contacted by VIR rejected the accusations. “We never buried any solid waste. Because the ground is very soft and due to the materials’ weight, they sank into the ground,” said Poldi Gerard, chairwoman of management board of Vietstar Company.

Gerard said some Vietstar workers were responsible for not transfering untreated waste to the dump site as required by Ho Chi Minh City Department of Environment and Natural Resources. “We [the company’s leaders] were not awared of the situation,” she said.

Cu Tien Nam, an official of Environment Police Agency, said Vietstar had not implemented its commitment to protect the environment in accordance with its environment impact assessment report.