Environmental protection technologies

Currently, Vietnam has a rapid urbanization speed. Research and application of new technologies to help protect the environment are becoming an urgent requirement.

Installing plastic waste treatment machines into construction materials researched and manufactured by Dr. Mai Ngoc Tam and her colleagues (Source: vacne.org.vn)

It is expected that by 2010 the whole country will have 1,226 cities, with a total population of 30.4 million people (accounting for 33% of the national population) and by 2020 there will be 1,953 cities, with a total population of 46.0 million people (accounting for 45% of the national population).

In addition to economic and social benefits, rapid urbanization will also increase the amount of waste including transport emissions, wastewater and domestic waste.

Pollution due to dust and noise in most urban areas is an urgent issue. In big cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, there have been areas polluted by CO, volatile organic matter (VOC). The main reason is due to excessive increase of cars and motorbikes due to poor road quality and the high rate of used cars (the number of vehicles with 10-20 years of use accounts for 73%).

In addition to measures to manage, improve the quality of roads, expand roads, increase the rate of people traveling by public buses, changing leaded gasoline . there are now some domestic and research technology studies. Application of foreign technology to minimize pollution caused by traffic emissions.

Ho Chi Minh City Polytechnic University has researched a plan to replace gasoline fuel with LPG liquefied gas to test the car and wave 110 cc engines to reduce pollution. The Sub-Institute of Materials in Ho Chi Minh City has fabricated and tested Cu, Co, Ni, La catalysts on carriers of aluminum oxide or Bentonite to convert CO generated from motorcycles. The Institute of Materials Science has researched and manufactured catalysts containing rare earth to convert CO, volatile organic substances (VOCs) generated from Mazda cars . In addition, in recent years there have been some foreign companies (Russia, USA .) came to test pollution reduction technology due to traffic emissions in Ho Chi Minh City.

Many technologies for collecting and treating domestic wastewater in all urban areas are also being implemented. Currently, in some big cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang City . are implementing projects to improve canals in the inner city, relocate slum houses, river embankments, releasing two river banks, construction of asphalt roads with grass separating the river banks . in the next stage, domestic wastewater in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City will be pumped to some natural lakes or low-lying areas for treatment. by biological method.

In other cities, the planning of domestic wastewater collection and treatment system has been approved. Currently, the technology of treating domestic wastewater and polluted ponds and canals in new urban areas is implemented at Pilot scale. HAECON (Belgium) has researched fixed biological buffer tank technology to treat domestic wastewater for small residential clusters of several hundred to several thousand people. This technology has the outstanding advantages of simple materials, less space, so it has been deployed in many countries around the world.

Many urgent measures for solid waste management in urban and industrial areas have also been applied and deployed. Localities that have conducted the planning of domestic solid waste burial systems have been studied and applied by localities. At present, there are 32 urban areas planning to build a sanitary landfill, of which 13 are under construction. Localities have implemented waste treatment technology suitable to the situation of the area such as hygienic landfill technology (Hanoi, Da Nang, Long An .), combined anaerobic anesthesia technology. Organic fertilizer export (Bien Hoa City, Dong Nai Province), Ninh Thuan .

Some other localities applied aerobic composting technology to combine the production of organic fertilizer, namely Cau Dien Waste Treatment Plant (Hanoi), Ba Ria Fertilizer Plant (Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province), Buon Ma Thuot composting plant (in Dak Lak province).

In addition, there are a number of technologies currently being implemented to minimize pollution caused by landfills such as: Worm treatment imported from the Philippines (Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources for implementation). ; treating waste with black flies (implemented by TTP.HCM); handling odors generated from the landfill by EM preparations, manufacturing waste treatment equipment with a capacity of 50-1,000 tons of garbage / day by biological method (implemented by An Sinh Joint Stock Company).