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Unions, associations and local people are cleaning up the environment

One of the important criteria on environmental protection for new rural construction is to ensure the criteria for people to use clean and hygienic water. Up to now, the province has focused on investing in many clean water supply projects for people through mobilizing funds from the State, businesses and people. Currently, the province has 105 rural concentrated water supply systems with a designed capacity of more than 11,000 cubic meters per day and night and the rate of rural households using clean water reached 72.8%, up by 30.66% compared to 2011.

According to the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the set goal until 2020 is that 80% of the province’s rural population will have access to clean water that meets the QCVN02 standards of the Ministry of Health while the conditions of resources and management and exploitation of projects have not met needs and proved not very stable and ground water and clean water are increasingly scarce. In the coming time, to strive for 80% of rural people to have an access to clean water the province will step up it socialization; develop and expand the market of clean water supply and rural sanitation; call for the participation of all the community and economic sectors, especially the private economic sector in the investment in clean water systems through capital and tax support policies. Also, it is essential to assess, review and update the master and detailed planning on supplying rural clean water as a basis for developing short-term and long-term plans; pay attention to applying various technologies, exploiting and using water sources and improving water quality in conformity with each locality’s economic, natural and social conditions; and ensure sustainable principles, especially giving a priority to seeking for and taking an advantage of stable water sources for the extremely difficult and densely-populated areas.

Besides clean water issues, waste collection and treatment is also one of the important criteria for the success of building a new and improved countryside today. According to the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment, environmental protection issues in rural areas were unsettled and domestic waste was not collected and treated in accordance with regulations, which created ugliness and caused complaints among people, many solutions have, in recent years, been disseminated to each household by management agencies at the provincial and district to communal levels along with the province’s enclosed guidelines and policies. Besides, localities have effectively disseminated propaganda information on protecting the environment in socio-political organizations and unions to people through various forms as well as mobilized social resources for environmental protection.

Collecting, transporting, and treating solid, ordinary and hazardous waste are increasingly tightened. In particular, ordinary solid waste will be sent to concentrated treatment areas as places for treatment by burning, composting and applying hygienic burial methods to eliminate local temporary landfills; packages of plant protection products are collected and destroyed at specialized incinerators; Dong Nai has installed about 1,149 plant protection products collecting tanks; 100% of communes have organized their daily-life waste collection; and the rate of collecting domestic waste in rural areas reaches 98%. The environmental protection in production, business, services and livestock activities has been paid more and more attention to; most of production and business establishments and livestock households have basically complied with the law on environmental protection and invested in building waste treatment facilities to ensure hygiene; and the highlight of environmental treatment in rural areas is that the province has encouraged and mobilized capital from many economic sectors and called for their participation in environmental protection, and invested in concentrated waste treatment plants in some districts such as Thong Nhat, Vinh Cuu, Cam My, Trang Bom, and so on.

The province’s rural environment is increasingly changing

There are currently 16 investment and construction projects in the province and suggested locations for their investment in 9 solid waste disposal complexes as planned have been introduced with 9 projects having been received for waste treatment, meeting the collection and treatment of daily-life solid waste that is generated among people. In addition, 31 out of 31 active industrial parks have basically completed the construction of their wastewater treatment systems with a total design capacity of 172,000 cubic meters per day, reaching 100%. Particularly, 25/25 industrial zones have a stable centralized wastewater treatment system that are operating stably and automatic monitoring stations have also been installed to monitor the quality of treated wastewater and transmit data to the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment for monitoring the results of environmental quality (soil, water, air) and maintaining a good quality. Environmental quality and waste sources are strictly controlled and monitored.

The provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment added, in a context that having domestic waste treated by burial methods is no longer considered an an optimal method because of low treatment costs to improve waste treatment segregating waste at source in rural areas is promoted to reduce treatment costs, reuse valuable waste, utilize heat in the process of treating post-segregation waste by incineration methods, and reduce landfills. Based on the initial efficiency in the segregation process of waste at source, the province has issued a master project to segregate domestic solid waste at source in Dong Nai province in the period of 2016-2020. After 3 years’ having waste segregated at source, a lot of positive changes have been made to contribute to raising people’s awareness of sorting solid waste and disposing of waste at the right place.

According to the statistical results of phase 1 of the project in the period of 2016-2018, the province has conducted a pilot program in 40 communes and wards with more than 29,000 households that have registered for it. The total volume of solid waste generated is 1,838 tons per day and the volume of solid waste collected and treated is 358 tons per day including organic solid waste for making compost and 31 tons of solid waste are recycled and treated by burial or incineration methods every day. In the second phase, the project is expected to be widely deployed  in all over the province with such participants as the People’s Committees of communes and wards, hospitals, supermarkets, markets, food and beverage establishments, trade centers, and so on. Especially, it is essential to further disseminate propaganda information on how to segregate domestic waste at source and coordinate with localities to pilot the establishment of hazardous waste recovery points and maintain such activities as waste recycling festivals, providing guidance manuals and documents on how to segregate waste at source, collect and dispose of pesticides at a right place.

Duy Minh (Thanh Ngoc)