Hazardous scrap proposed for removal from Vietnam

The ministry has written to the Prime Minister, proposing solutions to handle the scrap containers that have long been abandoned at local ports.

Given the high number of scrap containers abandoned at ports, the ministry in the proposal said that urgent measures should be taken to address the issue, particularly for containers of scrap that may cause environmental pollution.

The ministry proposed two solutions to tackle the abandoned scrap after it is categorized.

Scrap meeting national environmental standards can be auctioned by a council handling abandoned goods. For containers containing waste, dangerous waste and substandard scrap, shipping firms have to transport them out of the country.

Customs agencies will make a list of firms failing to transport the scrap and petition the Ministry of Transport to adopt relevant rules or ban them from operating at local ports.

Thirty days from the date of receiving the notice from customs units, if the shipping firms have not moved the scrap out of the country, the council would discard the scrap, using funds earned from the auctioned items to pay for the disposal.

As for the second solution, the council will put up all of the abandoned scrap for auction. Firms winning the auction will have to discard scrap that does not meet national environmental standards or is harmful to the environment.

However, the finance ministry prefers the first solution, since the second requires a large sum of money for discarding the scrap and companies may not attend auctions for abandoned secondhand products.

Statistics from the finance ministry showed that there were over 23,000 scrap containers at local ports managed by provincial customs agencies as of February 15 this year, with more than 9,800 containers being stored over 90 days.

The highest volume of scrap was recorded in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, with over 9,400 containers, followed by Haiphong and HCMC at some 6,000 and 4,600 containers, respectively.

As for the 9,800 overdue scrap containers, the ministry has asked the provincial customs agencies to find the owners of these containers, but they have only managed to find or identify the owners of 955 containers to date.