A resident of HCM City’s Binh Tan district collects rubbish from Lien Phuong canal (Source: VNA)HCM City (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City has improved environmentalprotection by completing a legal framework for the purpose and, in recenttimes, refusing licences for polluting plants and generally tightening environmentmanagement and oversight, and improving management of rivers and canals.
The Department of Natural Resources and Environment has held a series ofworkshops on environment management, penalised environmental violators,especially those dumping untreated waste directly into water bodies.
The city has 15 industrial and processing parks, all with wastewater treatmentsystems, which treat around 44,300 cubic metres daily.
In early 2016 all the parks installed systems to measure the quality ofwastewater after treatment and directly linked them to the natural resourcesand environment department.
Besides, once every half-year, the department checks the quality of air andwater around the parks.
At industrial clusters, which usually do not have investors in infrastructure,including wastewater treatment systems, the checks are done more frequently bythe department and local authorities.
Elsewhere, the volumes of household solid wastes have been increasing. Lastyear, three million tonnes of solid waste were treated, a 10 percent increasefrom 2015.
The city ran a pilot programme in several districts to segregate householdsolid wastes and then expanded it around the city.
Management of harmful industrial solid wastes has also been tightened. They areheld in containers in a separate area before being moved to treatmentfacilities.
Yet, despite all these efforts, environmental pollution continues to plague thecity, especially in the form of dumping wastewater and solid wastes directlyinto rivers and canals.
The city has fostered public education, improved oversight and stepped upinspections, and made penalties severe.
In a report in response to the Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment’squery about the city’s environmental actions, authorities said they aredrafting master plans for bio-diversity and water resource management for up to2030 and solid waste treatment and management for up to 2025, and investigatingall direct and indirect dumping of wastes in water bodies.
They also wanted the ministry to issue regulations enabling various agencies towork together for environmental inspections, simplify environmentaladministrative procedures, increase penalties for violating enterprises andoffer support to factories seeking to move their facilities out of residentialareas.-VNA
VNA
