VietNamNet Bridge – Fifty five percent of 400 enterprises surveyed about their treatment of emissions generated during the production process have no emission treatment systems.

According to Duong Thi Minh Hang from the HCM City Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, of the enterprises which do not have emission treatment systems, textile, dyeing and garment companies account for the highest proportion, 35 percent, followed by metal production enterprises, at 18 percent.

The number of enterprises in the food processing and drink sector accounted for 12 percent. The others are chemicals, agriculture and forestry enterprises.

The enterprises located in export processing zones and industrial zones have emissions volume 20-27 percent lower than the emissions concentration of the enterprises located outside the zones or within residential quarters.

While firewood and cashew nut shells are used as the main materials to create heat and gas, there is still no technology which can treat the emissions generated by these kinds of fuels.

The survey found that Binh Chanh, Thu Duc, Tan Binh and Tan Phu are the districts with the highest concentration of pollutants in emissions, exceeding the permitted level.

According to Associate Prof Nguyen Dinh Tuan, former president of the HCM City University of Natural Resources and the Environment, the survey results coincide with the results of a survey on the impact of polluted air on human health.

The reports from the HCM City Children’s Hospital No 1 and Children’s Hospital No 2 showed that a high percentage of the patients suffering from respiratory diseases live in these districts.

Tuan said the air pollution in the districts is more serious than in other localities because the wind tends to blow fumes towards the districts.

Dr. Phung Chi Sy, deputy head of the Institute of Tropical Technology and Environmental Protection, noted that Vietnam still cannot measure the emissions levels  sufficiently, which makes it difficult to control the sources of pollution.

According to Sy, with the currently available equipment and technologies in Vietnam, scientists can only measure emissions from factories’ chimneys, and cannot measure emissions from transport activities, or the evaporation of organic solvents from storage tanks, or dust from production workshops and warehouses.

However, some analysts argue that the biggest problem now does not lie in the inability of classifying the emission sources, but in the lack of the equipment used in measuring emissions.

They said that the inspection and treatment of exhaust fumes in HCM City and the rest of the country have been left half-done because the there is no equipment that is capable of measuring the violation levels.

Hang, who also believes that the biggest problem now lies in the lack of modern equipment, said her department has proposed buying new monitoring equipment to replace the ones which are no longer working properly. However, the budget for the procurement project has not been approved.

Thien Nhien