Vinh City: Difficulties in handling construction waste

(Baonghean) - Since mid-June, following the direction of the Vinh City People's Committee, the Urban Environment One Member Co., Ltd. has been handing over "clean" roads to wards and communes in the area to receive, manage and directly handle construction waste. However, after more than 3 months, the work of handling construction waste in Vinh City is still slow to change.

Re-accumulation of construction waste

At the vacant land on Nguyen Thi Thanh Street, next to the Cultural House of Block 8, Ben Thuy Ward (Vinh City), grass grows wildly, piling up a lot of waste with a large amount of broken bricks, broken mirrors, and sand and gravel from the renovation and construction of houses in the people. In addition, around this land there are still many precast concrete blocks and sewer pipes from the Hoang Thi Loan road construction project that have not been cleared and cleaned for many years. Mr. Nguyen Trong Mau - Block 8 Head, was upset: "After finishing collecting construction waste on Phong Dinh Cang Street, people have taken advantage of the vacant land for many years, without a fence around it, along with the long-standing backlog of construction materials from the road construction project (nearly 5 years now) to dump construction waste. Because it has not been handled for a long time, it has increased the congestion, causing traffic safety and urban aesthetics."

Construction waste "gathered" on Nguyen Thi Thanh Street, next to the Cultural House of Block 8 - Ben Thuy Ward (Vinh City).

Discussing this issue, Mr. Nguyen Khac Khanh - Vice Chairman of Ben Thuy Ward People's Committee, said: After taking over the site from Nghe An Urban Environment Company Limited, the ward directed the Urban Order Rules Team (TTĐT) to coordinate with 15 residential blocks to survey and found 4 hot spots for construction waste collection on Nguyen Van Troi, Phong Dinh Cang, Hoang Thi Loan and Nguyen Thi Thanh streets. The ward has mobilized nearly 10 million VND to contract with local individuals to collect 70m3 of construction waste; assigned responsibility to the TTĐT Rules Team, the executive committees of the blocks to regularly inspect and strictly handle violations in dumping construction waste. However, up to now, on the roads, garbage collection points of Nghe An Urban Environment Company Limited, and vacant lots, construction waste dumping still occurs every day, which is very difficult to manage and continues to increase every day.

In Hung Binh Ward, since the handover of clean roads from Nghe An Urban Environment One Member Co., Ltd., 3 construction waste points have appeared in the ward in front of Nghe An Publishing House, near 78, Doc Thiet and the collection point near Thuy Ta Lake (east of Vinh Bus Station). Mr. Ho Viet Thanh - Vice Chairman of Hung Binh Ward People's Committee, said: From September 2 to 10, the Ward People's Committee mobilized nearly 20 million VND to rent vehicles and workers to collect, transport and treat over 52m3 of construction waste in the right place. However, due to the nature of the subjects often dumping at night and the large population, construction waste management is very difficult.

For a long time, the work of collecting and treating construction waste in Vinh City has been allocated annual budget by the City People's Committee and assigned to Nghe An Urban Environment One Member Co., Ltd. to implement. From June 2014 onwards, the Vinh City People's Committee has officially handed over the work of treating construction waste in the area to the city's wards and communes. On that basis, the wards and communes directly balance the budget of their agencies and units to treat construction waste. However, up to now, many main roads in Vinh City still have many haphazard construction waste collection points with a large amount of rocks and garbage remaining on the sidewalks, roadsides, and many residential areas, and tending to increase every day. Mr. Hoang Van Khanh - Director of Nghe An Urban Environment Company Limited, said: "In the past few months, a number of hamlets, agencies, units, and households have called the company directly to ask for an explanation of the backlog of construction waste and request the company to handle it."

Thin force, tight budget

Faced with the recurring situation of illegal dumping of construction waste, through research we learned that the main reason is that the functional forces of the wards are still too thin, while the general awareness of a part of the citizens is still low. Mr. Nguyen Khac Khanh - Vice Chairman of Ben Thuy Ward People's Committee, said: Although the ward has posted warning signs at 4 construction waste points, most cases are often illegally dumped after hours, at night, and there is no on-duty force. Currently, the ward's traffic safety and sanitation force has 4 people, concurrently in charge of ensuring traffic safety, urban order, environmental sanitation, handling citizens' petitions and construction waste treatment, so it is very difficult to arrange to monitor and be on duty 24/24 hours on construction waste treatment. Similarly, in Hung Binh Ward, there are currently only 6 officers of the traffic safety and sanitation team, but they are also assigned to take on tasks of traffic order, construction, urban areas, environmental sanitation and construction waste treatment. This poses many difficulties for timely monitoring, collection and treatment of construction waste.

On the other hand, to collect and treat construction waste, wards face difficulties in allocating funding sources. Mr. Ho Viet Thanh - Vice Chairman of Hung Binh Ward People's Committee said: The funding source mobilized to treat construction waste is mainly from administrative sanctions in the field of urban order such as: handling illegal construction, business, unregistered business... However, this funding source is unstable. Along with this difficulty, Mr. Nguyen Khac Khanh added: Although the City People's Committee requires wards to handle administrative violations in collecting construction waste in violation of regulations, handling violations in reality is not easy because the ward has not yet issued specific sanctions. On the other hand, the ward is self-balancing the funding source for construction waste treatment from the source of environmental sanitation fees from the people, regular expenditure of about 20 million VND/year. For this reason, construction waste treatment can only be carried out twice a year on holidays, New Year and September 2. In addition to the above two difficulties, research shows that the work of raising awareness among people in construction waste treatment in wards and communes is still limited. The signing of commitments on the content and regulations of construction waste treatment for people has only stopped at households doing business on the road surface or renting out the road surface. Many households do not know the construction waste disposal points according to the city's planning.

To resolve the above situation, in September, Vinh City issued Official Letter 4232/UBND-QLDT on "handling the current situation of construction waste on sidewalks, roadsides, and public places" assigning wards and communes to organize the collection and clean treatment of construction waste, Nghe An Urban Environment Company Limited to clean up garbage yards at collection points before September 15. Following the city's direction, construction waste treatment in some wards has had many positive changes, many wards have proactively arranged funds for collection and treatment. Quang Trung Ward has directly contracted with Nghe An Urban Environment Company Limited to be proactive in the plan to collect construction waste in the ward. However, according to Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan - Specialist of the Urban Management Department, Vinh City People's Committee, the work of handling construction waste is still in a reactive manner, not proactive and thorough, mostly only focusing on crowded residential areas, main roads, national highways, public garbage collection points of Nghe An Urban Environment Company Limited. The work of propaganda and handling of violations is not drastic. Currently, with the actual requirement of a large volume of construction waste, no allocated funding, no specialized forces, wards and communes have sent official dispatches to the City People's Committee to allow extension of the time to implement the collection and treatment of construction waste in the area.

Luong Mai