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 schools.

Previously, chemical waste in secondary schools was present 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 few decades, is not small (mainly due to loss of labels due to movement 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 chemical containers that cannot be used in schools, there are many containers containing dangerous toxic substances and explosives.

I think the Department of Education and Training of Nghe An should urgently take the lead and coordinate with the provincial authorities to guide schools to implement highly feasible solutions, and regularly check the compliance of the facilities; because if not checked, the matter will "return to the same old place" (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 be better and more convenient than letting the schools do it themselves.

Minh Trung