The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) in collaboration with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) on April 14 launched the “Vietnam Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) and Sound Harmful Chemicals Management Project”.

Funded by the Global Environment Facility, the 2.25 million USD project will be implemented from 2016 to 2018.

It is aimed at the better management of harmful chemicals and reduce their impacts on the environment and human health.

The project is expected to provide technical support for the development of new regulations and technical guidelines on the environmentally safe management of chemicals, especially POPs, persistent toxic substances (PTS) and mercury.

It will also help with the management of contaminated sites using risk management and evaluation approaches that meet the requirements of the international conventions Vietnam has joined.

The project will help identify chemicals containing POPs in 1,350 tonnes of stockpiled pesticide as well as destroy 50 tonnes of DDT pesticide and 100 tonnes of soil contaminated with DDT.

Sound chemical management through its life-cycle from importation and exportation, production, usage, transportation, storage to waste disposal and treatment is a global trend to reduce the release of harmful chemicals to the environment, said Nguyen The Dong, Deputy Director General of the Vietnam Environment Administration .

In Vietnam, strengthening safe chemical management was identified as an important priority of the Government.

As of 2010, the country had more than 1,000 contaminated sites, of which almost 300 were obsolete POP pesticide stockpiles.

VNA