Battambang province will construct two dumpsites in two districts, Bavel and Thma Koul. Provincial officials are discussing how to speed up the construction project to make the sites available in order to reduce littering and improve the environment.
This is according to the meeting to discuss the preparation for the implementation of the project to improve waste management in Cambodia on April 19, with the participation of relevant officials of the Battambang Provincial Administration, the Ministry of Interior and other stakeholders.
Buon Heng, deputy head of the General Secretariat of the Urban Solid Waste Management Committee, who is also director of the Department of Function and Resource at the interior ministry’s General Department of Administration, said the meeting was to discuss the work on the preparation of the upgrade project of the solid waste and plastic waste management in the country under the financial support from the World Bank.
Heng said that to accelerate the project, the provincial administration must cooperate with relevant ministries under the assistance of the World Bank and supported by the interior ministry in establishing infrastructure to set up landfills and landfill for transferring garbage between Bavel and Thma Koul districts.
"In the future, 15 per cent of the waste dumped at these two sites will be recycled to help clean up the environment and reduce an increasing amount of plastic waste. Seventy-five per cent of people living in the two target districts will use the waste collection service to reduce littering and to maintain their district's beauty as well as each household's. It would help with allowing people to live in a comfortable and beautiful environment,” he said.
Moreover, Heng said the interior ministry also strove to find cooperation partners at the World Bank and relevant state institutions, especially the ministries of public works and finance to speed up the project.
Regarding the construction of landfills in these two districts, provincial governor Sok Lou said that Battambang is fortunate to be chosen by the government for this project as this issue has been a concern of the provincial administration as it had been trying to organise landfills properly for the increasing amount of garbage.
At the same time, he asked the districts' governors to make efforts to find land for the construction of landfills that do not flood and will not affect cultural heritage sites and are located about 30km from each other and the planned incinerators as well.
According to the interior ministry, the project to improve the management of solid and plastic waste in Cambodia has already completed its study and evaluation phase and is ready to be submitted to the board of the World Bank for approval and then actual implementation by mid-year.
