11/03/2020
According to the Law on Environmental Protection (LEP) 2014, environmental technical regulations are the limits of the parameters of ambient environment quality, contents of pollutants in waste, technical and management requirements that are promulgated by a State competent agency in the form of compulsory requirement to apply for environmental protection.
Perfecting the system of national technical regulations on environment
The system of environmental technical regulations includes: Group of technical regulations on ambient environment quality; Group of technical regulations on waste; Group of other technical regulations (technical regulations for imported scraps, technical regulations for some types of specialized equipment for waste treatment). These are legal tools that directly regulate environmental quality, determine environmental goals and set the permissible amount or concentration of substances released into the soil, water and air environment.
The system of our country's environmental technical regulations has been developed in order to stipulate the permissible values of environmental parameters to ensure the life and development of humans and organisms, on the basis of both ensuring the environmental protection objective, suitable with the socio-economic, science and technology development conditions of the country in each period and region, while meeting the requirements of harmonization with regional countries' standards and international conventions to which Việt Nam is a party. Therefore, our country's environmental technical regulations system has many similarities with the environmental standards systems of countries in the region and around the world.
The Law on Environmental Protection also stipulates that the environmental technical regulations must conform to the features of the area, region and production sector; Local environmental technical regulations must be more stringent than national ones, meeting specific environmental management requirements. Therefore, in addition to National Technical Regulations on Environment (Vietnam Regulations) issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), many localities have also issued a number of environmental technical regulations to tighten waste treatment requirements. Besides the general waste regulations, the MONRE has also issued regulations (for wastewater and gaseous emissions) for some specific production sectors. Up to now, 48 effective Vietnam Regulations on environment have been issued by the MONRE, including technical regulations on ambient environment quality, waste and other environmental technical regulations.
Environmental monitoring to assess compliance with Vietnam Regulations
In addition, the Ministries of Transport, Industry and Trade, Health, Agriculture and Rural Development..., also issued Vietnam Regulations related to preventing environmental pollution as a tool to control environmental pollution such as: QCVN No. 09:2015/BGTVT - Vietnam Regulations on technical safety quality and environmental protection for cars; QCVN No. 17:2011/BGTVT - Vietnam Regulations on provisions on preventing pollution caused by inland waterway vessels; QCVN No. 02:2011/BCT - Vietnam Regulations on safety in mineral processing plants; QCVN No. 01-14:2010/BNNPTNT - Vietnam Regulations on biosafe pig farm conditions; QCVN No. 01-15:2010/BNNPTNT - Vietnam Regulations on biosafe poultry farm conditions; some Vietnam Regulations on workplace environment (light, electromagnetic field, noise level, vibration, dust concentration, chemicals according to QCVN No. 21:2016/BYT, QCVN No. 27:2016/BYT, QCVN No. 29:2016/BYT, QCVN No. 30:2016/BYT, QCVN No. 02:2019/BYT, QCVN No. 03:2019/BYT…) issued by the Ministry of Health. The development of technical regulations on waste for specific production sectors is now based on the principle of supporting the development of certain production sectors, which only includes supervising regulations for typical emission parameters of the production sector, loosening some pollution parameters in comparison with technical regulations on general industrial waste to reduce waste treatment costs for enterprises.
Problems in the development and application process of regulations
According to the Vietnam Environment Administration, the application of Vietnam Regulations in localities across the country in recent years has contributed to the control of waste sources that may cause environmental pollution. However, the application process in localities still reveals some inadequacies due to the different particularities of natural conditions, socio-economic development levels and management requirements of the localities. The application of Vietnam Regulations on environment is sometimes inconsistent in some localities; many environmental management agencies require the application of general Vietnam Regulations on environment for wastewater or general emissions that are different for the same industrial production sector. Even the MONRE also applies different regulations in the requirements when approving the environmental impact assessment reports and when issuing the discharge permits, or there has been no research or assessment of the carrying capacity of the receiving waste sources (rivers, streams, ponds, lakes, canals, etc.), which leads to difficulties in the implementation process in accordance with environmental regulations. In addition, the application of technical regulations on discharges according to water use purposes is also difficult, especially in inter-regional and inter-provincial areas.
In accordance with the Law on Technical Standards and Regulations, the localities shall develop local regulations in accordance with local practical conditions. While the LEP 2014 stipulates that local regulations must be more stringent than national environmental technical regulations or meet specific environmental management requirements. However, the issuance of local environmental technical regulations is still limited and not properly taken care of by the local authorities, resulting in the localities having to apply national regulations in some specific cases, which is still improper and difficult for both enterprises and the State management agencies on the environment.
Up to now, the MONRE has issued 19 Vietnam Regulations on environment for wastewater and gaseous emissions for 18 specific sectors (particularly, for the steel sector, Vietnam Regulations have been developed for both wastewater and gaseous emissions). As mentioned above, the development and issuance of some environmental technical regulations for a number of specific production sectors are based on the principle of supporting production development for certain sectors; the application of these regulations should have been accompanied by a number of specific management regulations (for example, development of specific production sectors is only encouraged in certain areas/localities, with limited scope), but in reality, there are no attached management regulations, leading to inequality among different sectors in the same operating area. Many other production sectors and fields that are subject to application of the general Vietnam Regulations propose to have technical regulations developed for their own sectors.
Proposals and recommendations for the environmental technical regulations to meet the practical requirements
Some experts believe that, in order to protect the environment, it is necessary to develop and promulgate environmental technical regulations in the direction of managing the discharge load, not merely managing the discharge concentration as today. However, it is necessary to recognize that, in any direction, there are also certain advantages and disadvantages; environmental technical regulations are just one of the tools to manage the environmental protection and should always be applied in conjunction with other management tools. In order to develop and apply environmental technical regulations to manage discharge load, it is necessary to calculate the carrying capacity of the environment, these data will vary in different areas and need to be updated regularly. Therefore, it is necessary to start conducting research immediately to select and prescribe the methodologies/procedures to calculate the environmental carrying capacity, as a premise for the development and application of environmental technical regulations for discharge load management. It also shows that it is necessary to continue to perfect and apply the environmental technical regulations towards managing discharge concentration in the coming time. In particular, the recommendations need to note some of the following issues:
Vietnam Regulations for waste has to be more stringent to ensure an improved environment; there should be more detailed regulations on waste- receiving environment, coefficients of receiving areas, waste flow coefficients and roadmap so that they can be applied in many different cases.
To promote research, development and application of local technical regulations on environment and zoning for receiving waste in detail to overcome difficulties arising when applying Vietnam Regulations and protect environment in sensitive areas; areas that has been or will be seriously polluted.
It is necessary to have specific direction and orientation on the development and issuance of environmental technical regulations for specific production sectors. If it is necessary to loosen the regulation on the discharge concentration of a pollutant, it must be linked to specific regulations on the discharge area, which is to restrict the area of developing that specialized production sector (meaning the surrounding environment is still capable of receiving and treating typical pollutants of the production sector).
Dr. Trần Thế Loãn
Vietnam Association of Environmental Economics
(Source: Vietnam Environment Administration Magazine, English Edition III - 2019)
