'Shocked' by Minister Tran Hong Ha's environmental report

“Every year, 100,000 tons of pesticides are used, of which about 80% are being used improperly…” - Minister Tran Hong Ha said.

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) Tran Hong Ha gave "startling" figures when reporting to the Government at the National Online Conference on Environmental Protection this morning, August 24.

Specifically, nationwide there are currently 283 industrial parks with more than 550,000m3 of wastewater per day and night; 615 industrial clusters, of which only about 5% have centralized wastewater treatment systems; the remaining industrial clusters, or production facilities, self-treat wastewater or discharge directly into the environment.

Along with that are more than 500,000 production facilities, including many types of production that pollute the environment and have outdated production technology; more than 13,500 medical facilities daily generate more than 47 tons of hazardous waste and 125,000 m3 of medical wastewater; 787 urban areas with 3,000,000 m3 of wastewater day/night but most of it has not been treated; nearly 43 million motorbikes and over 2 million cars in circulation create a large source of emissions to the air environment.

Every year, 100,000 tons of pesticides are used, of which about 80% are used improperly; the efficiency of use is only 25-60%; the collection, storage and treatment of packaging has not received attention, many places dispose of them right in the fields, causing odors and emissions.

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment speaks at the National Online Conference on Environmental Protection. (Photo: TN&MT Center)

Along with that are more than 23 million tons of domestic waste, 7 million tons of industrial solid waste, more than 630 thousand tons of hazardous waste; there are currently 458 landfills, of which 337 are unsanitary; there are more than 100 small-capacity domestic waste incinerators, with the risk of generating dioxin and furan gases...

According to Minister Tran Hong Ha, these are sources of huge impacts on the environment in our country and our country's environment is still facing huge challenges and urgent problems.

First of all, mineral exploitation activities in many localities lack strict management, leading to an increase in environmental pollution hotspots. Waste from agricultural production and rural people's daily life is not collected and treated properly and hygienically; the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides leads to increasing rural environmental pollution, which is very serious in some places.

Many craft villages operate in production fields that are causing high pollution to the environment such as: recycling plastic, metal, lead batteries, livestock farming, paper production...

Domestic wastewater in most urban areas and residential areas has not been treated; domestic waste and industrial waste have not been well managed, causing environmental pollution. Surface water and underground water in urban areas and residential areas in some localities are heavily polluted...

Minister Tran Hong Ha said that if the above urgent environmental issues are not resolved promptly, they will have increasingly negative impacts on the implementation of economic growth goals, ensuring social security as well as directly affecting people's health and livelihoods.

Regarding the above environmental situation, according to Minister Tran Hong Ha, there are both objective and subjective causes, but mainly due to subjective causes. First of all, it is the awareness and sense of responsibility for environmental protection of investors, some sectors, authorities, economic organizations, and residential communities that are still limited; the situation of focusing on immediate economic benefits and disregarding environmental protection is still quite common, especially in the process of appraisal, approval, and implementation of investment projects.

The Minister said that it is time for us to develop a "green GDP" indicator in assessing economic growth instead of the current simple GDP concept, which must take into account both the costs of resource consumption and environmental loss due to economic activities.

The quality, effectiveness and efficiency of state management tools and measures on the environment are still inadequate and do not meet requirements; the effectiveness and efficiency of state management work is not high, especially in preventing and controlling sources of environmental pollution.

In particular, there are more and more large-scale investment projects that are licensed but lack planning calculations and have not been fully assessed for their environmental impacts; the control, prevention, and response to environmental incidents in investment projects have not received due attention.

Regarding long-term solutions, Minister Tran Hong Ha suggested continuing to study, supplement and perfect the system of guidelines, policies and laws on environmental protection..., having solutions to promote the effectiveness of the environmental police force; enhancing the capacity of state management agencies on environmental protection from the central to local levels.

Recommend that the National Assembly increase budget spending for environmental protection, focus on solving urgent and long-standing environmental issues; strongly attract private and foreign investment in developing environmental protection industry and services based on the principle of "polluters must pay", "those who benefit from the environment must pay"; and soon apply environmental criminal sanctions.

According to Infonet.vn