HCM City eyes moving polluting companies out
Ho Chi Minh City- If HCM City wants to offer its residents quality living, the most important thing is to improve its environmental quality, a city leader told a meeting held recently to discuss how to deal with polluting companies.
"To improve environmental quality, the city must close down all polluting enterprises and tighten management to not allow any new polluting ones," Deputy General Secretary of the city Party Committee and Deputy Chairman of the People's Committee, Tat Thanh Cang, was quoted as saying by Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper.
After a programme to move out polluters ended in 2007 the city reported that there were no more polluting companies. However, since then around 835 workshops and companies have been found to cause pollution, 12 of them seriously.
"The number of companies investing in HCM City has increased sharply in terms of both quantity and quality, and some of them continue to pollute the environment," Nguyen Thi Thanh My, deputy director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said.
Most polluters have been found to be small and very small units or households that lack the resources to install waste treatment systems.
Many companies that did move out of the city have chosen locations in the outskirts to build factories, which, due to lax oversight by local authorities, cause pollution there.
Outlying districts like Binh Tan, Binh Chanh, Hoc Mon, and 12 have in fact become hotspots of pollution by companies in the dyeing, textile, nylon, and plastic recycle industries.
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