VietNamNet Bridge – A delegation of environmental institutes from the German state of Saxon and the Dresden University of Technology arrived in HCM City yesterday, Oct 29, to discuss co-operation in environmental protection, particularly waste management.

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Nam Son dump site often becomes overloaded with rubbish. Environmental experts from Germany yesterday worked with local experts on a collaborative project on waste treatment in Viet Nam. (Photo: VNS)
The visitors attended a workshop held yesterday with the aim of identifying problems as well as possible solutions in waste management. Two other workshops will be held in coming months, officials said.

The two sides will establish a framework for future co-operation in environmental protection including developing a human resource contigent skilled in waste management, they added.

In Germany, per capita waste generation is estimated at 511kg per year. It has 160 hygienic landfills, 68 waste incinerators, and 85 biogas plants. Solid waste treatment has become an important industry in the German economy with an annual turnover of more than 50 billion euros (US$72.4 billion), noted Nguyen Viet Ngoan, Rector of the Sai Gon University.

Each year, more than 11 billion tonnes of urban, industrial, and construction and other kinds of waste are discharged across the world.

The current per capita waste generation in Viet Nam is around 210kg per year and 32 out of 63 provinces and cities have planned projects to build hygienic landfills, Ngoan said.

However, only 13 provinces have so far invested in such facilities, according to reports from provincial departments of science and technology.

Ha Noi, HCM City, and Nam Dinh, Thua Thien-Hue and Dong Nai provinces and Hue are among the very few localities that have waste treatment plants in the country, the workshop heard.

* Ha Noi to move polluting firms

Industrial manufacturers that cause pollution in Ha Noi will be moved from the city's urban and residential areas by 2015, according to a plan from the municipal People's Committee.

The head of the committee's Natural Resources and Environment Division, Le Dinh Cung, said enterprises from 17 different fields, such as food processing, slaughtering, and recycling, will be moved.

The city now has 422 industrial manufacturing enterprises, covering the total areas of 887.7ha, said Cung. There are 26 industrial zones that discharge about 100,000-120,000cu.m of waste water each day and night and only 20-30 per cent of the waste is treated before being discharged, he said.

Only five industrial zones, Bac Thang Long, Phu Nghia, Quang Minh, Ngoc Hoi, and Phung Xa, have waste water treating system.

From now until the end of the year, departments will make concrete plans to move the damaging enterprises.

By mid-2011, environmental departments plan to have a completed list of all of these manufacturers.

"The city authorities will strive to move 115 enterprises covering a total area of 154.2ha by the end of 2012," said Cung.

The remaining enterprises will be moved by 2015.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News