HANOI (AFP) – Vietnam’s capital Hanoi has vowed to tackle severe river pollution from industrial parks, households and farms in waterways in and around the city of three million people, state media reported Tuesday.
Vietnam’s capital Hanoi has vowed to tackle severe river pollution from industrial parks, households and farms in waterways in and around the city of three million people, state media reported.(AFP/File/Hoang Dinh Nam)
The Hanoi people’s committee and five surrounding provinces are drawing up a plan to tackle the problem, in line with a recent decree issued by the prime minister, the state-run Vietnam News daily reported.
Untreated sewage and waste from factories and hospitals has made the Nhue-Day river system around Hanoi one of Vietnam’s three most polluted waterways, according to a government report issued last month.
Human health in the densely populated basin — and around the northern Cau river, and the Dong Nai waterway near Ho Chi Minh City — is being threatened by bacteria, pesticides, oil, heavy metals and organic pollutants, it said.
Under the Hanoi plan, polluting industries will have to invest in green technologies, the report said, with the aim of building modern wastewater treatment plants in 70 percent of industrial parks by 2012.
Hanoi authorities have also decided to set up a 20 billion dong (1.2 million dollar) fund to provide low-interest loans for environmental projects, the Thoi Bao Kinh Te Vietnam (Vietnam Economic Times) newspaper reported.
In the central city of Hue, meanwhile, Vietnam has approved a wastewater treatment system to be built with 200 million dollars in development aid from the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation, a report said.
