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| Governmental activities |
Lao PDR |
Environmental Education and Awareness is one of the activities,
which aims to encourage the public to gain a good insight, knowledge
and skills and environmental value for active participation in
environmental value and natural resources conservation. That’s
why Environmental education and awareness raising has been important
and crucial. Activities of the Strengthening on environment management
project, which have been successfully implemented include: formulation
of strategy and action plans for EEA, capacity building for concern
sectors, public awareness through media campaigns, among others.
Organizer of activity: Environmental Promotion Division, Department
of Environment, Science Technology and Environment Agency.
The Environment Education and Awareness–raising:
Sectors Implementation
- Various media, including radio, television,
newspaper and magazines have been employed to
disseminate environmental awareness and education. This has been
achieved thought partnership with the ministry of information
and culture.
- A technical working group for EEA has been established,
in order to develop the curriculum and to incorporate
environment into formal education in schools and teacher training colleges.
- An
environment and development research centre has
been established to upgrade environmental education
to the university level.
- The environment education sector’s
member has established a sub-working group to
work on EEA within their sectors.
- The six-monthly environmental newsletters have been published.
Public Environment Awareness Raising
- Training for mess media
staff on public dissemination of information
relating to the environment has taken place during the period
2001-2005.
- A media working group team has been established.
- The trained
mass media have planned in order to carry out
their responsibility, according to their roles
and target groups for their work.
- Environmental management programs have
been regularly broadcast to the public as part
of dissemination.
- Many activities and much information
related to the each year’s
Wold Environment
Day celebrations have been publicly disseminated and evaluation workshops for
the mass media have taken place.
SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT IN URBAN AREAS OF VIENTIANE CAPITAL CITY
Backgrounds
Vientiane is the capital city of Lao PDR and has a land
area of 3,920 square kilometers. The population of Vientiane
is 639,326 (Vientiane Capital City, 2003) and is increasing at
a rate of 4.7% (STEA, NORAD, UNEP, 2001). Vientiane Capital City
consists of nine districts, but the waste management infrastructure
currently mainly services the wards (ban) in four of these districts:
Chanthaboury, Sikhottabong, Sisattanak and Xaysettha Districts.
Waste collection at the landfill was 41,489 t/year in 2001 and
42,704 t/year in 2002 or about 200-250 t per day. This equates
to on average 0.75 kilograms of solid waste per capita per day
(UDAA, 2004). There is one dumping site in Vientiane. The composition
of waste collected by the waste pickers’ is different from
waste found at the landfill, informal sector, recycling, using
in home gardens, burning and dumping (please refer to photograph
1).
The key issues of solid waste management in Vientiane Capital
City are:
- Lack of awareness on the proper disposal of
solid waste.
- Excess of waste collection taken
to the dumping sites.
- Problems arising due to
poor waste management include bad odors, numerous
flies and no separation of waste into different containers;
- The generally dirty urban city and environment;
- Solid waste-related
activities for poor waste pickers posing a serious
threat to public health as well as an aesthetic problem in
the city.
Purposes
The objectives of the solid waste management in urban
areas of Vientiane Capital City project are as follows:
- To
survey about waste data collection, composition
of waste and recycling for the economy;
- To establish waste data
for monitoring using GIS.
- To increase public awareness;
How can reduce waste in Vientiane
Capital City
Tips to reduce waste are the following:
Reduce: The amount of waste
production, source reduction, waste prevention, consuming
and no throwing away. It can be as complex as redesigning
a product to use fewer raw materials in production or
to use material again and dissemination awareness to
people about the proper disposal of waste.
Reuse: Reusing items
by repairing or giving to someone who can repair it,
donating and selling also reduces waste.
Recycle: Recycling is one of
the best for the environment. Recycling includes buying
products with recycled content. After collection,
materials (e.g., glass, metal, plastics, and
paper) are separated for sale also creating jobs, reducing
pollution, reducing waste to the landfill, incinerator
and increasing income |
Outcomes
The number of people in urban areas in Lao PDR is beginning
to grow more rapidly and the amount of waste is increasing. Therefore,
good methods of waste management and also appropriate new technologies
for monitoring need to be developed. Promoting waste markets
and recycling would also create awareness to reduce the total
volume of waste at the landfill. There is a need to improve the
data system of solid waste for the monitoring and management
to support environmental reports has been improved.
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