The dilemma of closing landfills

Hundreds of landfills in Hai Duong province have reached the threshold of overload. However, closing these landfills is facing many obstacles.

The landfill in Cay village, Long Xuyen commune (Binh Giang) receives about 2 tons of household waste every day and is about to be unable to receive any more waste while the locality has not yet been able to transport the waste to the treatment plant.

Hundreds of landfills need renovation

According to statistics from the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Hai Duong province, by the end of the first quarter of 2025, the whole province had 661 landfills for domestic waste, of which 256 had been closed or stopped operating, while 405 were still operating. However, only 28 landfills were assessed to be able to receive waste without renovation, while 337 landfills needed renovation, upgrading, expansion and 15 landfills needed new construction. At the same time, 49 landfills were full, no longer able to receive waste, and needed to be closed in accordance with technical regulations.

The most difficult problem is that most landfills were established many years ago, are small in scale, and do not have proper investment in technical infrastructure such as leachate collection systems, bottom linings, or odor barriers. Many landfills are used by people to dump waste in low-lying areas and abandoned fields, making them difficult to control. When they are closed, there is no clear legal mechanism for remediation and treatment of polluted land, and even land use rights have not been fully established.

In Cam Giang district, with a population of over 166,000 people, the locality generates about 125.6 tons of household waste every day. Currently, there are 90 landfills in the district, of which 31 have stopped being used and 59 are still operating. However, more than half of the landfills in operation need urgent renovation due to subsidence of embankments, unsafe leveling systems, and a high risk of leakage of pollutants into the environment.

However, according to the report of the District People's Committee, the funding source for the operation and renovation of landfills is almost zero. The locality is forced to request the province to support about 2.87 billion VND for operation and an additional 3.29 billion VND for renovation, upgrading, expansion or construction of new landfills in the period of 2025 - 2027.

Dozens of landfills in Cam Giang district need funding for renovation due to the current risk of environmental pollution.

Due to lack of funds, the closure of landfills in many localities has only stopped at not accepting more waste or leveling the land and planting trees. Some landfills are left to collapse naturally over time. Mr. Vu Anh Tuan, Head of the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Binh Giang district, said that to close a landfill according to standards, it would cost billions of dong. "Just having to bring the waste to the treatment plant costs a huge amount of money, not to mention the need for leveling land, barren land to plant trees on top," said Mr. Tuan.

Binh Giang district has 70 landfills, of which 30/70 have been closed, currently 40 are in operation. While waiting for the new waste treatment plant to come into operation, the district needs to upgrade, renovate, and expand 42 landfills, build 1 landfill, and close 19 landfills with a proposed budget of over 6 billion VND from the province and a landfill operation cost of 2.1 billion VND/year. This is also the locality with the largest number of landfills that must be closed in the province.

Many barriers

In addition to funding, the operation and closure of landfills also faces many obstacles. One of the main difficulties is the lack of specialized human resources. A report from the Department of Agriculture and Environment said that the province has more than 700 waste collection units, most of which are spontaneous groups and teams with a workforce of elderly and disadvantaged people in society who have not received proper training. There are even cases where collectors arbitrarily burn waste at landfills to reduce volume, causing fires to spread and serious smoke and dust pollution.

In addition, a significant barrier comes from people's awareness. In many localities, garbage is still dumped in the wrong places, and people even reuse closed landfills to dump garbage secretly at night. This situation makes efforts to close them meaningless.

In terms of planning, many localities do not have land to build temporary landfills. The reality in the three communes of Toan Thang, Gia Phuc, Quang Duc (Gia Loc) is an example. These localities cannot expand or renovate landfills because there is no suitable land. They are forced to propose to the province to allow the transportation of waste to a centralized treatment plant - this increases transportation costs and overloads the existing plants.

The whole province has 337 landfills that need to be renovated, upgraded, expanded and 15 new landfills need to be built, 49 landfills are full, no longer able to receive, and need to be closed.

The solution being promoted by Hai Duong is to promote waste sorting at source, combined with expanding the composting model for organic waste - such as the model successfully implemented in Nam Sach district, where 100% of waste is treated on-site, without the need for landfills. However, to replicate, there needs to be an initial support mechanism, technical guidance and synchronous investment in a system of composting points and transfer points.

In the long term, the province’s new waste treatment plant project in Thanh Ha district is expected to be a fundamental solution to the problem of treating domestic solid waste. However, this plant is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2027. During the transition period of 2025-2027, the province is required to maintain, renovate and even build temporary landfills, with the total local support budget proposed to be up to nearly 170 billion VND.

Closing landfills is not only a matter for the environmental sector, but also a matter of sustainable development planning, which requires the synchronous participation of the entire political system and society. When it is not possible to burn all the waste with high technology, each old landfill still smolders and “poisons” the environment, requiring drastic action to avoid paying a higher price in the future.

On April 14, 2025, the People's Committee of Hai Duong province issued Directive No. 1060/BC-SNNMT on the plan for collecting, transporting and treating domestic waste during the transition period before the province's centralized treatment plant comes into operation.

Accordingly, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee requested localities to strengthen propaganda, prevent indiscriminate burning of garbage and properly close 49 full landfills.

The Provincial People's Committee also requested to expand the source classification and composting model, applied in at least 5 communes/year in the period of 2025 - 2026. The Department of Finance, the Department of Agriculture and Environment and localities need to review and arrange funding to support investment, operation, renovation and closure of landfills, especially in places with occupancy rates of over 90%.

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Source: https://baohaiduong.vn/nan-giai-dong-cua-cac-bai-chon-lap-rac-412516.html