Vietnam alarmed about scrap imports

Minister says country will review scrap imports to see which the country can recycle.    Vietnam’s environment minister is sounding the alarm about growing scrap imports into his country following a ban on many commodities in China.
   Tran Hong Ha, minister of natural resources and environment, told VN Express International that the government will “review the list of all types of scrap currently allowed to enter Vietnam to see which can and cannot be recycled. It will devise a ‘proper’ solution after the review.”
    He told the newspaper the amount of scrap the country is importing is too high and can “turn the country into a landfill of industrial and radioactive waste.”
   According to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries in Washington, Vietnam is a significant importer of a number of scrap commodities from the United States.
   It was the fourth-largest importer of mixed paper from the United States and in the fourth quarter of 2018 imported eight times as much as it did in the same period last year. It was not a large consumer of U.S. scrap metals.
   In the first quarter of this year Vietnam ranked as a leading destination for plastc scrap from the United States. ISRI said it ranked as following for these scrap commodities: polystyrene, fourth; PVC, third; PET, sixth; and mixed plastics, fifth.
   The company has restricted import of many water materials citing contamination issues, says the website Materials Recycling World, which reprinted a letter from the Tang Cang-Cai Mep International Terminal that after June 15 it will discharge container from vessels only if they have valid import permits and will stop receiving all import laden containers of plastic scrap from other ports.
   It said large numbers of containers of paper and plastic scrap caused temporary over capacity at its facility and impacted its operations and that of its customers.