VietNamNet Bridge – Hanoi’s authorities have approved an environmental campaign to handle grave pollution recorded in local craft villages.

A villager checks and swaps silkworms to weave her intricate blankets. (Photo: VNA)

Accordingly, this year will see these villages classified into categories based on local major production including food processing, mechanics, handicraft, and construction materials.

Meanwhile, the city will devise regulations concerning the collection, transportation, treatment and recycling of rural waste resulting from craft-making activities.

The authorities have decided to provide financial support to treat environmental pollution in these villages; 20 severely polluted localities will receive 100-percent waste-treatment costs. The funding will help build wastewater treatment systems and solid waste depots for businesses, cooperatives and household workshops.

Water samples taken from 40 craft villages in Hanoi raised red flags when 100 percent of the test results showed excessive pollution levels in at least three different categories, according to an environmental survey by the Hanoi Centre for Environmental and Natural Resources Monitoring and Analysis.

Almost none of the villages had sufficient facilities to collect and process solid waste or treat wastewater. As a result, a large amount of polluted water - up to 7,000 cubic metres a day at some villages – is being released into the environment without being treated on a daily basis.

VNA