Anger at higher garbage fees

Workers from HCM City's Environment Company collect garbage in the city centre. — VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Phan

HCM CITY — Thousands of residents in HCM City are complaining about higher garbage collection fees that went into effect at the end of 2008.

Most household businesses are refusing to renew their contracts with waste-collection service providers.

The decision issued by the municipal's People's Committee in 2008 required both licensed and unlicensed household businesses and organisations to pay a monthly fee of VND110,000 (US$5.7) for 250-420 kilos of solid waste disposed every month.

The fee is VND60,000 for a volume of waste below 250 kilos per month.

"It is unreasonable to charge a household business like mine a fee that is three times higher than the previous price," said Ho Ngoc Tam, owner of a store selling bottled water beverages in Tan Binh District.

Tam said most of his shop's waste was sold to recyclers, and the rest was discarded in small quantities.

"I'm willing to pay if the higher price is reasonable," he said.

More than half of 6,500 commercial households in Tan Binh District have not renewed their contracts, even though a waste-collection provider, the Tan Binh District Urban Transport Service Company, has worked with local government to persuade residents to comply with regulations, according to Vo Van Dung, head of the company's environment department.

Only 2,800 out of 6,780 household businesses in District 1 and nearly 10 per cent of a total of 1,000 household businesses in Go Vap District have agreed to renew waste-collection contracts, according to waste-collection service providers in those two districts.

In some cases, businesses had had to pay two kinds of fees for waste-collection services, said Tran Thanh Tam, head of District 3's Public Interest Service Company's Department of Planning.

Drugstores and private physician offices, for example, have been charged fees for medical-waste and solid-waste collection services. —VNS