The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has issued a document responding to the opinions of voters in Ho Chi Minh City sent by the Central Committee for the Protection of Vietnam.
Accordingly, voters reflected that currently, the situation of littering canals and public works in many places, although the government has coordinated with organizations in many forms in the past, has not been improved in the awareness of the people because they have not been paid attention to deterring.
Voters suggested that the National Assembly, the Government, and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment should take strict measures to punish the behavior of leaving garbage in the wrong place and littering, continue to strengthen propaganda work to raise people's awareness and ensure environmental improvement.
Regarding this issue, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment said that the main causes of littering in canals and public places are three main reasons.
In which, people's awareness is not high, this is the core cause. Although the city has spent tens of thousands of billions of VND to renovate canals and coordinated with organizations to propagate in many forms, the awareness of some people has not improved, many people still have the habit of littering, even secretly dumping garbage into canals.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment also said that although there are regulations on penalties, monitoring and caught red-handed illegal littering is facing many difficulties because the authorities of wards and communes are still thin and have not implemented it regularly and continuously.
In addition, the garbage collection system is not yet synchronous, especially in some spontaneous residential areas and boarding houses, garbage collection is not really effective, leading to people easily littering; during the rainy season, garbage from the sewer system is washed away by water into the canal, aggravating the pollution.
To strengthen solid waste management, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has advised competent authorities to issue legal documents to manage solid waste.
Clause 7, Article 77 of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020 stipulates that the People's Committees at the commune level are responsible for collecting and transporting domestic solid waste.
Check compliance with legal regulations on environmental protection in the collection and transportation of domestic solid waste.
Handling violations of the law on management of domestic solid waste according to authority; reviewing and resolving recommendations and reflections of organizations, communities, households and individuals related to the collection and transportation of domestic solid waste;
Preside over and coordinate with domestic solid waste collection and transportation facilities, communities, and socio-political organizations at the grassroots level to determine the time, location, frequency and collection route for domestic solid waste;
Guiding households and individuals to transfer domestic solid waste to collection and transportation facilities or to collection points in accordance with regulations.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment said that the Government has issued Decree No. 45/2022 regulating administrative sanctions in the environmental field.
And currently, the Ministry has completed the draft decree amending and supplementing Decree 45/2022 (which has been assessed by the Ministry of Justice, and is being reviewed and finalized according to the assessment before being submitted to the Government for consideration and promulgation).
The draft is expected to increase the penalty level in sanctions for violations of environmental protection laws in general and violations of solid waste management in particular to ensure strictness of the law and high deterrence.
