Solving solid waste in Quy Hop

(Baonghean) - Quy Hop is home to many types of minerals such as white limestone, construction stone, tin ore... However, massive exploitation has caused many consequences of environmental pollution, including solid waste...

From Vinh City, follow National Highway 48 to Dong Hop Commune (Quy Hop). The image that caught our eyes was dozens of white stone sawmills springing up side by side. Dong Can Hamlet is where most stone processing factories are concentrated, including large-scale factories such as An Son Company's factory, Hoang Gia Company's factory... What is easy to see at these factories is that large and small stones are dumped everywhere by the sawmills, piled up in piles. On National Highway 48C from Tam Hop and Tho Hop communes to Quy Hop Town, countless piles of waste such as crushed stone or dry stone mud are dumped haphazardly on both sides of the road, even overflowing onto the edge of the road in some places. Going up Provincial Highway 532 to the "capital" of tin ore in Chau Hong and Chau Tien communes... a similar image is also happening. The old dumping area in Pieng To used to be the place where tens of thousands of cubic meters of waste rock and soil were gathered, especially mud generated during the mining and preliminary selection of tin ore. These waste sources are the cause of many consequences for the lives of people in Poong, Na Hieng, and Cong villages of Chau Hong commune. Every time it rains heavily, rocks, mud, and wastewater flood the villages and houses of the people.

Waste rock from tin mining blocked the flow of a stream in Chau Tien commune.

Ms. Le Thi Tham, in Dong Hop commune, was upset: “In the past ten years, the number of stone sawmills in Dong Can hamlet and some other hamlets has increased rapidly, so every day hundreds and thousands of cubic meters of stone are processed and sawn. All waste stone and sludge are dumped haphazardly everywhere by the factory owners, making us very upset.” According to Ms. Tham, people are upset because stone processing facilities often dump waste in the wrong places, wherever it is convenient. They even illegally dump waste onto cultivated land, into ponds, lakes, streams and along national highways... affecting traffic, production and the living environment of the people.

The indiscriminate dumping of solid waste by mineral mining and processing enterprises in Quy Hop district has been going on for a long time. Most of the enterprises in this locality have explained their illegal actions by saying that they do not have a centralized dumping site. The director of Hoang Gia Company, located in Dong Can stone processing cluster, Dong Hop commune, defended: “Mineral mining and processing must generate waste, enterprises that do not have a place to dump waste must find their own place to dump it. This is the fault of the government for not planning a centralized dumping site for us!”

During the discussion, Mr. Vi Thanh Tuong - Vice Chairman of Quy Hop District People's Committee, said: "The planning of solid waste treatment sites arising from the process of mining and processing minerals in Quy Hop is a hot issue and is causing headaches for district leaders. Most businesses here are handling it spontaneously when there is no centralized waste disposal planning area. Recently, the district has chosen a fairly large location near the Thung Khuoc small industrial cluster to plan a centralized waste disposal site, but it is facing some problems such as site clearance so it has not been implemented yet".

Currently, in Quy Hop district, there are 6 small industrial clusters and mineral processing along with hundreds of mineral exploitation and processing facilities in operation. However, the management of environmental issues, especially solid waste, is being lax. If there are no timely corrective and handling measures, in the long term, it will cause unpredictable consequences for the environment.

Article and photos: Dinh Tiep