VATIS UPDATE Article

Viet Nam plans to allocate big budgets to develop waste water drainage systems in urban areas in recent years. However, the systems’ conditions remain poor which still cause pollution because of low drainage capacity. The waste water drainage in urban areas depends on concentrated sewer systems. According to a report there are 30 urban waste water treatment plants as of July 2015 with total capacity of 809,000 cubic meters per day.

There are 40 other plants under design or construction with total capacity of 1.6 million cubic meters per day. Though the plants all are operational, they only run at 50 percent of the designed capacity, while only 65 percent of the plants link with water drainage systems and 12 percent of domestic waste water can be treated. It is estimated that 4 percent of waste sludge can be treated if considering the current operation capacity.

A government’s report submitted to National Assembly’s Deputies in May 2015 showed that 90 industrial zones have been built or were building waste water treatment systems. Meanwhile, a report of the Ministry of Health released in June 2014 showed that only 50 percent of hospitals in the country have waste water treatment systems. In most of the 5,000 existing craft villages, waste water goes directly to the environment without any treatment.