Euro 50 million loan proposal submitted to parliament for waste management

18 December 2019
Euro 50 million loan proposal submitted to parliament for waste management
People walk past a garbage dump on the outskirts of Yangon on June 5, 2019. Photo: Sai Aung Main/AFP

Deputy Union Minister of Planning and Finance Maung Maung Win submitted a plan to borrow Euro 50 million from the government of Poland as an official development assistance (ODA) loan for waste recycling in Yangon as there would be no more land available for a landfill site in the next four years.

Currently, the household waste volume is between 2,300-2,500 tons, waste from industrial zones is 150 tons and waste disposal from hospital and clinics is over 2 tons daily.

The current waste disposal system used in Yangon city has caused pollution of water affecting the health of people so the open space landfill site system must be stopped and recycling of waste, incinerating, gasification, compacting and crushing of waste should be used, the deputy minister said.

This project will be executed at Htein Pin landfill site in Hlaingtharyar Township and project period is three years from 2020 to 2023. The plant in this project has the capacity of processing 1,000 tons of waste daily and the output will be 30 tons of CNG, liquefied Carbon Dioxide 40 tons, Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) 180 tons and natural manure 250 tons, according to the presentations submitted in parliament session.

The tenure of the loan is 67 years including a grace period at the interest rate of 0.1% p.a. The Deputy Minister said that this was a soft loan with low interest and it could be paid by income generated from the plant.