Hanoi government alone unable to tackle pollution: Mayor

The Hanoi government alone cannot radically deal with air pollution, Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung said in an interview with Zing.vn.

According to the newswire, when Hanoi’s air quality index consistently reach high levels and negatively affect human health, many people asked the question "Why is the Hanoi government remain inert? What has the city done to reduce air pollution?”

Besides, many people said that the city has not provided timely responses, leaving its citizens in a hazardous environment.

Hanoi’s air pollution index has been at the bad and unhealthy levels for many days. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Ministry of Health have warned people to protect themselves.

Hanoi is dark in the days when the pollution index increases. Photo: Zing

Talking to Zing.vn, Chung said air pollution in Hanoi is also caused by factors in surrounding localities. For example, there is a paper making village in Bac Ninh province that charges a lot of emissions, or a cement plant in Lang Son province. It sounds like a long distance but the actual straight line is only over 100 kilometers, not to mention the impact from southern China, from which pollutants arrive in Hanoi in just half a day.

Chung then affirmed: "That the Hanoi government remains inactive is not true." "As for the city, we have actively implemented many solutions," he informed.

“The Hanoi government has taken action to deal with air pollution a long time ago, not just today. As soon as I became chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee [December 2015], the then US deputy chief of mission noted that I should pay attention to addressing environmental pollution,” Chung noted.

Among the measures the city has taken to deal with this thorny issue, a lot of trees have been planted. Prior to Chung’s office term, the average area of greenery reached 6.7-6.8 square meters (m2) per person, now it has reached 9.5 m2 per person.

Second, Hanoi is applying vacuum cleaning. Every day, 100 sweeper machines go around the city, each is able to suck about 1.6 cubic meters of dust.

Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung. Photo: Zing

Third, Hanoi’s lakes stinked badly previously, contributing to air pollution. Now, bad smell has reduced and fish can swim in the lakes.

Fourth, if prior to Chung’s office term, people littered rampantly along the roads, which caused bad smell, now there are trash bins at every corner of the city.

Fifth, the city is constructing a wastewater treatment plant in Yen Xa commune, Thanh Tri district.

The sixth solution, the most important one today, is to install 85 mornitoring stations across the city while the existing number is just 14. In the coming time, the city will install more monitoring stations and analytical software to get more accurate indicators about air pollution in Hanoi.

Besides, the city has developed a project which was approved by the municipal People's Council to ban motorcycles, because the most polluting dust cones from the exhaust gas of these vehicles, Chung added.

Especially, Hanoi city is sowing and nursing hundreds of thousands of trees with technologies that experts from Italy and Singapore are transferring. These plants can absorb bad smell and dust, like the ones planted in Singapore.

However, these solutions take time to be effective and need coordination of ministries and agencies as well as funds.