The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has submitted to the Ministry of Justice for appraisal the Draft Decree stipulating penalties for administrative violations in the field of environmental protection, replacing Decree 45/2022. In which, Clause 1, Article 27 proposes to stipulate: "Fining from 500,000 VND to 1,000,000 VND for acts of households, individuals, agencies, organizations, production, business, service establishments, investors building and operating infrastructure in concentrated production, business, service areas, industrial clusters (with domestic solid waste arising with a total volume of less than 300 kg/day) not classifying domestic solid waste according to the regulations of local authorities; not using packaging containing domestic solid waste according to regulations".
In the process of contributing opinions, the Departments of Agriculture and Environment of some localities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Thai Nguyen, Dong Thap, Tuyen Quang, Hue, Lang Son said that it is necessary to supplement regulations on penalties for collection and transportation units if they dump mixed types of waste that have been classified by households, individuals, agencies, and organizations. According to localities, this regulation aims to ensure fairness, avoiding the situation where people perform classification but the collection and transportation stage does not comply.
Responding to this suggestion, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment said that the classification of domestic solid waste is assigned by law to local authorities to decide, ensuring compliance with the reality of the locality, therefore, the act of violating the provisions of Clause 1, Article 27 is appropriate. Regarding the treatment of domestic solid waste after classification, it also depends on the domestic solid waste treatment infrastructure in the locality and is directly related to the collection and transportation of domestic solid waste, therefore, if regulations are made for the act of dumping domestic solid waste after classification, it is easy to lead to arbitrariness when handling violations.In case the locality has fully issued regulations on domestic solid waste classification and has sufficient technical infrastructure to treat domestic solid waste after classification, the handling of violations for the act of dumping domestic solid waste after classification is carried out according to the provisions of point d, clause 3, Article 27. Therefore, it is proposed to maintain it as in the draft Decree.
According to Clause 1, Article 26 of Decree 45/2022, households and individuals who do not classify domestic solid waste according to regulations or do not use packaging containing domestic solid waste according to regulations are fined from 500,000 VND to 1 million VND.
