Vietnam is investing in the environment

Through a series of sub-projects, the Vietnamese have learnt to take better care of the environment and reduce pollution. COWI has headed the overall project, and received an honour certificate for it.

Viet Tri City, situated 75km west of Hanoi in Vietnam, has become greener and more environment friendly: there are more trees and a healthier water environment, while the people are generally more aware of green issues as a result of a project financed by DANIDA, for which COWI has just been awarded an honour certificate by the Phu Tho Provincial People's Committee.

This was a broad project with seven different target areas ranging from waste management and wastewater to tree planting in areas with polluting industry and environmental education.

“Viet Tri City is an industrial satellite to Hanoi, and many of the companies operate with out-of-date or poorly maintained technical systems that pollute the water, the soil and the air. Through this project we are trying to cover a wide area – and we initiated interventions which the local people can carry on for themselves when our project comes to an end,” says project manager Morten Jørgensen from COWI.

The environment in schools

Several of the subprojects have involved activities in schools and the city's education department. As an example, teachers and pupils from 24 schools have been taught with project help about the usefulness of trees, and as part of the scheme they have planted and tended almost 18,000 trees.

In addition, four selected schools were given help specifically to improve teaching in biology and ecology, and raise the pupils’ awareness about the environment.

"This has included supplementary training for the teachers, and we have provided books and CDs for the school libraries. What attracted most attention was a drawing competition run at the same time, in which the children were asked to draw ways in which trees can contribute to a better urban environment. It was vital to get people interested in the project and thereby obtaining their support," says Morten Jørgensen.

Wastewater and hazardous waste from hospitals

Another sub-project was designed to set up treatment plants for wastewater from the two largest hospitals in the province and train the staff at the treatment plants to operate and maintain the installations themselves.

Besides these installations, COWI has helped to solve the problems of transporting hazardous healthcare waste from thirteen hospitals and clinics: colour-coded bags for the separated waste, appropriate bins, a special-purpose lorry, a special disposal site, and staff training were all included in the solutions.

Cleaner production in industry

Another focal point of the project was to clean up industrial production, and as a result many industrial managers and officials from the supervising authorities have been on training courses.

During their training they learnt to identify ways of improving manufacturing processes, so that finally they would use less raw materials and energy, cause less pollution and improve the working environment.

By: Line Steenberg, jaje@cowi.com
Published: 01.12.2005

Facts about the project

The project has been under way since the middle of 2002, and is being carried out in collaboration with the Phu Tho Province and DANIDA. COWI's role was to provide technical assistance and financial management.

Much of the technical assistance has been provided by local consultants guided and supervised by COWI. For example, they have undertaken the analyses of water and wastewater, the training of teachers and similar assignments. In this way the project has involved several national scientific institutions, and extended their technological expertise through their collaboration in the project.