Warning of electricity cut for those who do not pay trash collection fees

Friday, August 28, 2009
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Kep Chuktema, the governor of the city of Phnom Penh, indicated that he will use an extreme measure against all those who refuse to pay their trash collection fees to the Cintri Company: their electricity will be cut off. Kep Chuktema made this announcement during a meeting held in the morning of 27 August 2009 at the city hall, to address the trash issue with Cintri, the company which received the trash collection concession from the city. Kep Chuktema said that, from now on, the city will take major steps and it will announce the information to the public. He also requested to Cintri to set up a detailed list of its clients that are behind in paying the trash collection fees, as well as the reason why they refused to pay these fees. He also indicated the city will request a meeting with Electricité du Cambodge and the Council of Ministers on the mechanism to resolve the price dispute.

Cambodian Co Plans To Produce Organic Fertilizer From Garbage

PHNOM PENH, Aug 8 (Bernama) -- A Cambodian firm, Cintri, who is incharge with a mammoth task of collecting the capital's garbage, will now recycle Phnom Penh's mountains trash into organic fertilizer, Cintri's Deputy Director Seng Chamroeun said Friday.

"People will need to start sorting their garbage into specific categories before this plan can start," China's Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying to a local daily.

Cintri will soon begin combing the refuse piles at Stung Meanchey landfill site for appropriate organic waste, he added.

"We want to make a large quantity of compost to supply farmers. In addition, we can reduce garbage pile ups," Seng Chamroeun said, stressing that cooperation from authorities and citizens is essential to ensure the strategy is a success.

Fertilizer prices peaked this year at three times their cost in 2007, with about half of Cambodia's estimated two million farmers adversely affected by the price rise, according to the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture.

Cambodian mayor threatens to dump rubbish in contractor's office

May 22nd, 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - An errant waste disposal contractor which was failing to keep rubbish off the streets could soon find the uncollected garbage dumped in its office, the capital's governor said Thursday.

Kep Chuktema said he realized that the French-Khmer company Cintri had faced logistical problems and felt sorry for it, but his first duty was to the public so the company had until the end of the week to up its performance.

"Otherwise I will send municipal staff to collect the rubbish and order them to dump it in the Cintri headquarters," he said.

Cintri won a 49-year exclusive waste collection contract for the capital in 2002, but has failed to stop piles of rubbish accumulating across the city.

It has blamed flooded roads to the city's only dump, but Chuktema, known for his outspokenness and sometimes left-of-centre solutions to problems, says that isn't good enough, and says he is not joking.

In 2003, he called on the population to eat more dogs to solve a problem with strays on the streets.