VietNamNet Bridge – Many factories in HCMC dump untreated wastewater into canals with a recent report showing that only 85% of 3,300 manufacturing facilities in the city have built standard wastewater treatment systems.

According to the city government’s report on environmental pollution reduction in the 2011-2015 period, the city earlier targeted that by 2015 around 80-90% of the manufacturing, service and trading facilities in the city would have had environmental treatment systems and signed contracts with special units for waste collection and treatment in accordance with the existing regulations.

Though the target has been virtually realized, the fact that the city can only control the factories discharging large volumes of wastewater while many facilities with daily wastewater discharge of less than 10 cubic meters have not invested in treatment systems.

The city also wanted 90% of new urban areas to have central wastewater treatment facilities and half of the old urban areas to have such systems. However, only 10 out of 20 new urban areas have met the criteria and a mere 13% of the total wastewater volume in the city is treated.

The city government has failed to achieve the target of reducing water pollution in canals in suburban areas because untreated wastewater in inner-city areas has kept flowing into the canals.

In addition, canal water in the city is polluted by wastewater discharged from many factories in residential areas, industrial parks without central wastewater treatment systems and neighboring Binh Duong, Tay Ninh and Long An provinces.

SGT