Budget: From 07/2007 to 12/2008 - CHF 812'800 (approx. US$ 625'231)

Partners:

Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment (MONRE), Ministry of Industry (MOI)

Implementing Agencies:

Vietnamese Environmental Protection Agency (VEPA) and Electricity of Vietnam (EVN)

Project Location: Vietnam

Background:

The Stockholm Convention concerning the Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) was ratified by Vietnam in July 2002. The Convention became legally binding on May 17, 2004. Part II of Annex A of the Stockholm convention stipulates that countries must make determined efforts to identify, label and remove from use by 2025 most relevant PCB-containing equipment, and manage those wastes in an environmentally sound manner. Furthermore, the parties involved are requested to report every five years about progress made in eliminating PCBs. According to Article 7 of the Stockholm Convention each country has to transmit its (national) implementation plan to the Conference of the Parties within two years from the date on which this Convention enters into force.

As a consequence, Vietnam finalized its National Implementation Plan (NIP) in 2007. The NIP is based on a National POP Inventory, which was established by the Vietnam Environmental Protection Agency (VEPA), the lead agency for all matters relating to the implementation of the Convention.

Overall Goals: 

• Strengthen local capacities in the comprehensive environmentally and technically sound management of PCBs.
• Support the Government in defining and adopting the necessary policy and strategy changes for the final elimination of all PCBs.
• Elaborate all necessary baseline data for the formulation of a follow up by Demonstration of PCB Management and Disposal Project of the World Bank.

Current Objective:

Carry out various screening in sites of electricity suppliers and  the strategy of the project for the second year will be decided based on obtained results.

Approaches:

• Capacity and awareness of the governmental institutions concerning PCB and hazardous waste in general will be strengthened during the different project steps. The iterative process between theoretical know-how transfer and practical experience will lead to a well defined policy regarding a PCB and eventually hazardous waste management. 
• Capacities of experts regarding analytical, handling and elimination of PCBs will be enhanced. Trained experts will be crucial for the implementation of the nation-wide PCB-elimination and even of an improved hazardous waste management within research and scientific institutions as well as in supervising environmental agencies. 
• Technical know-how of the experts must be integrated into institutions. Through the pilot projects a hazardous waste (HW) infrastructure such as certified laboratories, hazardous waste handling companies, certified stocking places, cement plants certified for HW-incineration and other elimination opportunities within Vietnam.

Results Achieved and Expected:

A screening process of the sites is carried out by trained research institutes which are also able to make GC-MS analyses for transformer oils and soils. Results of the process will be collected in a special PCB database which is currently under construction. It is expected that DONREs and other stakeholders like EVN have access to this Database through Internet.

Highlights:

The project has operated quicker and smoothly. A closer cooperation between national and international experts led to positive achievements which are important for the following-up projects of World Bank.

Contact:

4th Floor, 106 Nguyen Du Street, Hanoi, Vietnam
Tel: +84 4 941 0272
Fax: +84 4 942 9796
Email: pcb@nea.gov.vn