Old equipment and weak infrastructure are creating a serious pollution problem at many traditional craft villages, with untreated waste being dumped into the local environment.
Bat Trang Pottery Village has many coal kilns
The small-scale craft operations in the villages are often located in residential areas and generate considerable waste.
Ha Van Lam, a representative for Bat Trang Craft Village, said the local craftsmen operated some 1,150 coal-fired pottery kilns that release a huge volume of smoke.
Nguyen Cong Thanh, the party secretary of Dai Bai Commune, Bac Ninh Province, said waste from bronze casting villages is dumped, and waste water is being discharged directly into the river system.
Out-of-date techniques and equipment and weak infrastructure, and low environmental awareness, resulted in an absence of any waste treatment system.
Dai Bai Village is known for its bronze casting
"People in Dai Bai Village often have to breathe in contaminated air and have respiratory or eye illnesses," Thanh said.
He said community health statistics showed 23 people died from cancer from 2001 to 2014 in just one village.
Bui Cach Tuyen, the deputy head of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said 104 villages had metal pollution levels 3,000 times higher than permissible. The villages have been order to clean up by 2020.
Industry and Trade Minister Vu Huy Hoang said that to preserve traditional villages and contain pollution, the New Rural Development Programme would be implemented to upgrade environmental standards.
