To address water pollution and implement Green Growth Strategy, Vietnam should prioritize investment and use of new technologies to process and optimize water resources.
Many shortcomings in water treatment
As reported by the World Bank (WB) in 2013, the total investment for the sewer and wastewater treatment system in Vietnam is $150 million annually. It is estimated that this figure is equivalent to 0.45% of GDP/year of Vietnam.
According to the report of WB, there are 60% of households in Vietnam discharging wastewater directly into the public sewer system. Only 10% of this amount is through the stage of processing. Among households discharging wastewater into the tank, only 4% is handled.
Moreover, in general evaluation, the current wastewater management systems in most provinces of Vietnam are in deterioration. WB has estimated that a weak wastewater treatment system can cause damage to the economy of Vietnam up to $780 million per year, equivalent to 1.3% of national GDP.
Currently, less than 20 qualified urban wastewater treatment factories are built in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang... 5 other systems are built in a number of provinces and cities with a total treatment capacity of 530,000m3/day. In addition, there are about 30 different systems under design or construction process.
As WB’s calculations, in 2025, Vietnam needs $8.3 billion to develop infrastructure of wastewater treatment system to serve the needs of 36 million urban residents.
Beside challenges of wastewater treatment in urban areas, industrial wastewater treatment is also emerging as a serious problem for the industrialization of the country. By the end of 2013, Vietnam has 289 industrial parks and export-processing zones in 58 provinces and cities including 191 ones under operation. Although the government has the regulation requiring all industrial parks and export-processing zones to complete the central wastewater treatment system in the period of 2011 - 2015, but so far, 92 parks and zones are still failing to meet the regulation specified above. This means that wastewater from this area is being discharged directly into the environment without treatment.
Solving Challenges
Like many countries in the world, treatment and optimization of water resources requires implementation across all sectors: from industry, agriculture, energy to chemical, food and beverages.
In the energy sector: the treatment must meet the standard of strict regulations on the discharge of wastewater and solid waste, reduction of CO2 emission, elimination of sulfur and mercury, as well as ensuring air quality in the area, minimizing costs and producing more energy to the grid system. For operations of seawater desalination, the solid residue must be removed after careful analysis of water resources and conservation needs.
For the wastewater treatment, contaminants and microorganisms must be removed to ensure that the water can be reused. In the field of chemical processing, especially ethylene, styrene, and ammonia, chemical plants must comply with safety regulations and are required a longer operating time with less pollution...
To address the needs above, it needs to propagate to raise awareness for human to act cleverly to the water environment; to not contaminate water sources. Regulations on coordination between neighboring localities about water environmental protection in the shared river and canal system must be built; small production facilities are put into industrial parks and export-processing zones. At the same time, the wastewater and waste treatment projects must be accelerated according to the plan.
In addition, the demarcation project for high banks, rivers and canals should be accelerated; the funding sources must be enhanced and specific mechanisms are developed for salvaging grass, garbage, water hyacinth, and dredging rivers and canals... Moreover, the approach and application of the modern equipments and chemical technologies must be considered in treatment and optimization of water resources such as GE water & Process Technologies (under the General Electric Corporation).