Mechanization in household waste collection in Sa Pa

In April 2024, the Provincial People's Committee issued Document No. 1576 on stopping the use of electric three-wheeled vehicles to collect and transport waste at Lao Cai Urban Environment Joint Stock Company. This means that 60 electric three-wheeled vehicles of this unit will stop operating.

Sa Pa Environmental Enterprise is a unit under Lao Cai Urban Environment Joint Stock Company. In that general context, more than 10 electric vehicles specialized in collecting waste in the center of Sa Pa town also had to stop operating.

Sa Pa is a national tourist area, welcoming millions of tourists every year to visit and relax. With the characteristics of a small urban area located halfway up the rocky mountains, the dense construction makes public space in Sa Pa not much. Therefore, space for collecting, transferring, storing garbage or storing vehicles here is very rare.

Moreover, Sa Pa is considered a “city on the mountain”, the roads in Sa Pa have relatively steep slopes, making it difficult to use rudimentary handcarts to collect garbage. The roads are small, steep, and the traffic volume is large, so if a mechanized solution cannot be found to replace traditional handcarts, garbage collection will take a long time.

Faced with that pressure, the company has piloted the use of small specialized trucks to collect garbage in Sa Pa town. To suit the streets, 5 garbage trucks with a load capacity of 1 - 1.8 tons were invested to collect garbage. After being full of garbage, the small trucks will go to the transfer point to transfer to specialized trucks to serve the purpose of compacting, rolling garbage and transporting it to the treatment site.

I think using specialized small trucks to collect garbage is reasonable for local conditions, and at the same time more civilized, professional and modern than rudimentary three-wheeled vehicles.
Ms. Trinh Thu Giang, owner of a business in Sa Pa ward

According to Mr. Bui Tuan Duong, Director of Sa Pa Environmental Enterprise, although Sa Pa city is small, the amount of domestic waste discharged into the environment every day is very large due to the high density of population and tourists. Every day, the amount of domestic waste in this locality is on average 28 - 30 tons, peaking at 50 tons during holidays and Tet.

The amount of garbage is large, while Sa Pa is a key tourist area of the province, so the appearance of the city is always a matter of special concern. How to reduce the time of storage and appearance of garbage on the street is a problem that businesses must find a solution to.

Meanwhile, Sa Pa is the first locality in the province to implement mechanized household waste collection, so the experience for this activity starts from zero. The unit must both do it and learn from its own experience to have the most suitable plan for the local characteristics.

To solve that problem, Sa Pa Environmental Enterprise has divided its forces into groups. Before the collection vehicle system moves, workers go first to sweep and collect, and bring the trash to fixed points near the road. The enterprise is also building the time, route, meeting point for garbage transfer, meeting point for waiting to lift the trash bins collected by workers on the streets... calculated in sync with the route of the motor vehicles.

This route will be widely announced for people to understand. However, for the mechanized waste collection plan to be successfully implemented in the area, it still requires the cooperation of the people in bringing the waste to the collection location at the agreed time.

In addition, to ensure urban aesthetics, the enterprise arranges mobile garbage collection teams to promptly handle garbage collection points arising in the city, bring garbage to the right place, and limit the situation of garbage being stored for a long time in public areas.

The Director of Sa Pa Environmental Enterprise added that thanks to its flexibility to adapt to actual conditions, Sa Pa has deployed mechanized garbage collection in all 6 inner-city wards.

Currently, large garbage collection points in the area have been removed, reducing the situation of people leaving garbage haphazardly on many roads; there are no longer images of workers pulling rudimentary carts to collect garbage or garbage collection points affecting the general aesthetics of the tourist area...
Mr. Bui Tuan Duong, Director of Sa Pa Environmental Enterprise

To improve the efficiency of mechanized garbage collection, local authorities need to continue to propagate and mobilize people to dump garbage on time and detect and strictly handle individuals and organizations that dump garbage in the wrong places.

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