Chemical waste in schools needs to be treated properly.
(Baonghean.vn) -During our business trips, we had the opportunity to visit many secondary schools (middle and high schools) in Nghe An. One thing that made us very concerned was the treatment of chemical waste in the schools.
Previously, chemical waste in secondary schools existed but was still small. Since the implementation of the new general education program, the amount of chemical waste has increased significantly due to the increased amount of time for experiments and practice. Most of the schools we visited dumped chemical waste directly onto the ground in the school grounds. Mr. Nguyen Tat Tay, Head of the Department of Education and Training of Do Luong confirmed: "Do Luong has 22 secondary schools directly managed by the Department, but currently (December 16, 2011) no school has a septic tank of the right standard to handle chemical waste after practice and experiment hours".
Another problem is that in many schools, the amount of chemicals that cannot be used, accumulated over the past several decades, is not small (mainly due to lost labels due to moving or rain and wind). Every school wants to liquidate and destroy these chemicals, but there is no way, so they have to keep them in storage. This issue has been raised for 3 years in many forums, but has not been resolved by the responsible agencies. It is known that among the unused chemical containers of schools, there are many containers containing dangerous toxic substances and explosives.
It is thought that the Department of Education and Training of Nghe An should urgently take the lead in coordinating with the province's functional agencies to guide schools to implement highly feasible solutions, and at the same time regularly check the compliance of the facilities; because if not checked, the matter will "return to the same old situation" (due to the limited awareness of environmental protection of schools). In addition, the Department of Education and Training needs to count the quantity, collect unusable chemicals in schools to one or two locations and organize the destruction according to a scientific process, which would certainly be better and more convenient than letting the schools do it themselves.
Minh Trung
