VietNamNet Bridge – It is estimated that one million tons of hazardous waste is generated from the industrial production every day. Only 60 percent of this volume is treated, while the remaining 40 percent is discharged to the environment without treatment.

When talking about the environment protection of industrial production enterprises, people believe that the enterprises can be classified into two groups: the group of enterprises whose behaviors of discharging untreated waste to the environment have been discovered, and the group, whose behaviors of discharging untreated waste to the environment have not been discovered.

In the first half of 2011, the HCM City People’s Committee discovered and punished 238 enterprises which violated the regulations in the environment protection law. However, the figure is just the “tip of the iceberg”.

Enterprises, both big and small, discharge untreated waste

The Environment Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security (C49), has discovered a lot of industrial production workshops which violated the regulations on environment protection, even though the workshops have waste treatment systems.

The Lien Hiep Rubber & Trade Company in Cu Chi district in HCM City has a waste water treatment system with the capacity of 1800 cubic meters per day. However, only a part of the waste water of the factory was put into the treatment system, while the remaining went directly to the Vam Sau canal.

In order to save money, the company does not spend money on building the storehouses for keeping hazardous waste. Therefore, after treating the waste water, the waste backlog was thrown into the ground behind the company.

Not only small industrial workshops, but big enterprises in industrial zones with sufficient on-spot waste water treatment systems also deliberately violate the environment protection law. Vina Rong Hsing, a 100 percent foreign invested tanning enterprise in My Phuoc I Industrial Zone in Binh Duong province was caught in the very act discharging 100 tons of sewage sludge and 40 tons of leather waste which did not meet the prescribed standards.

Reports show that in Binh Duong province, nearly 30 industrial zones have had concentrated waste water treatment systems completed. However, a lot of enterprises still have not linked to the systems. Other enterprises have linked to the systems, but they are still discharging under-standard waste to the industrial zones’ treatment systems.

The inspection tours of C49 have discovered that 10 percent of industrial workshop clusters still do not have the systems for collecting and treating waste. Especially, C49 has discovered that the Long Thanh waste water treatment plant belonging to Sonadezi Long Thanh discharged thousands of cubic meters of untreated waste water to the Ba Cheo canal that links to the Dong Nai River.

Problems have also been found in the industrial zones in HCM City. In Le Minh Xuan Industrial Zone in Binh Chanh district, nearly 10,000 local households have to live together with the terrible smell coming from the waste water from the enterprises in the zone. Nguyen Van Nam, a local resident, said that people many times lodged complaints to the local authorities, but no improvement has been made since then.

Violators are “bull-headed”

In an attempt to escape from the police’s notice, enterprises try to discharge untreated waste water in the evening, on rainy days or on the days with high tide, which can help them disperse the untreated water to canals.

Sonadezi Long Thanh’s behavior of discharging untreated waste water to the environment was only discovered after the great efforts by the environment policemen. Phan Huu Vinh, Deputy Head of C49, said that it was very difficult to discover the illegal waste water discharging, because the enterprise had the underground sewer system located 2-3 meters under the ground. Especially, 100 percent of textile and dyeing enterprises in HCM City have been found as violating the laws.

Source: Dat Viet