S.Korea Pledges to Help Vietnam City Manage Toxic Waste

South Korea has agreed to provide a financial assistance to a project to help Ho Chi Minh City apply information technology to manage harmful waste sources, said the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. Under the project, the city’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment will install a global positioning system (GPS) to track the direction of vehicles transporting waste this year, the Saigon Giai phong newspaper reported Jan. 15. The system will help local authorities prevent transporters from discharging into the environment when the vehicles are traveling on the road. HCM City discharges 6,400 tons of waste a day. This volume is estimated to increase to 7,600 tons of waste each day by 2010 and 16,400 tons a day by 2020.