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Poor Science contributes to air pollution in Vietnam

  • Writer: Green Movement
    Green Movement
  • Mar 17, 2021
  • 4 min read

Updated: Mar 30, 2021



Problems of Air Pollution in Vietnam


One severe problem of society nowadays that should be worried about is air pollution. Air pollution utters threats to people's health all around the world. Vietnam now has to tackle an alarming air pollution situation. In the annual report on the environmental performance index made by the American environmental organization, Vietnam ranks among the top 10 air polluted countries in Asia. In Vietnam, about 60, 000 deaths each year are related to air pollution, more than three times compared to the number of people who died in traffic accidents. Hanoi, one of the two largest cities in Vietnam, has ranked in the top 15 most polluted cities in Southeast Asia. According to the WHO, data gathered in March 2020, Hanoi is the 150th most polluted city and the 7th polluted capital of the world; in Southeast Asia, Hanoi is the second most polluted capital and the 6th most polluted city after 5 cities in Indonesia.



According to WHO, air pollution can be considered a silent killer, which is the cause of the world's 4th highest mortality, only behind high blood pressure, malnutrition, and smoking. In Vietnam, the losses can be estimated to between $10.82-13.63 billion a year, due to the air condition in Vietnam. According to Professor Dinh Duc Truong, who is the head of the National Economics University’s Department of Environment, Climate Change, and Urban Studies, with data from the financial support to lower mortality risk caused by air pollution, the losses were about 4.45 - 5.64 percent of GDP. The losses come from health checking, air purifier, fatalities to air pollution, significantly affect the work productivity of Vietnam and its image on the international scale.


The lack of optimal technology and causes of air pollution

  • Old equipment and technology

Air pollution is becoming an urgent problem in urban, industrial, and even rural areas. Many companies are using old equipment and technology with a high degree of pollution and without any air treatment facilities. Industrial pollution, coal burning, and the growing number of fossil-fuel passenger vehicles are the major causes of air quality degradation in urban and industrial areas. Overall amounts to particulate matter, CO, CO2, SO2, and NOx surpass the acceptable standards in certain metropolitan areas.


During the industrialization period, there are currently more than 1,450 handicraft villages that employ 30% of rural employment. The popular trades of these villages are food manufacturing, household appliances production, building materials production, textiles, dyeing, paper mills, and scrap recycling. Production machinery and infrastructure in these villages are mostly old and outdated. Production facilities are located in households or dispersed inside settlements, air contaminants have reached troubling amounts in many craft villages.

  • The exhaust gas from a large number of motor vehicles

In Vietnam, traffic accounts for 70 percent of air emissions and 85 percent of CO, and 95 percent of VOCs. Today, Vietnam is home to more than 18 million motorcycles and more than 700,000 vehicles, all of which are old and vulnerable to creating air pollutants, according to current statistics, Hanoi has more than 770,000 cars and nearly 5.8 million motorbikes. According to the Department of Environmental Protection (Department of Natural Resources and Environment) at the roads under construction and the construction area, there is heavy pollution of dust, benzene, and noise. According to statistics, 70% of the smog-causing air pollution in Hanoi is due to traffic activities.

  • Dust from construction

Arising from the construction of new projects, improving and repairing roads due to not seriously implementing the dust cover at construction sites and vehicles transporting materials and waste build. According to the survey of Economic & Urban news in some streets and ring roads, the belt has much construction works so the streets often suffer dust, dirt, seriously affecting traffic and the life of local people. Mr. Mai Trong Thai - Director of Hanoi Environmental Protection Department, said that dust from construction works, from trucks carrying materials spilled, is also a cause of air pollution.


In particular, the infrastructure construction works often cause noise and scatter soil, dust, buildings and apartment buildings, lack of barriers, gathering materials in the wrong place and not yet declared. The location of the car wash before going in and out of the work or with but not yet guaranteed. Energy production from thermal power plants contributes 60 % of total electric energy output and is one of the largest anthropogenic sources of air pollution. The majority of thermal electricity generation in Vietnam depends on coal-fired, and emits enormous volumes of dust, SO2, CO, CO2, and NOx, causing serious pollution of the ambient air.

  • The increase in emission sources

The impact of burning straw, and the habit of burning honeycomb charcoal that has a great impact on air pollution. For example, according to statistics, there are 55,000 honeycomb charcoal stoves in the area, each day burning up to 528 tons of coal, emitting 1,870 tons of CO2 to the environment, which is a significant source of pollution. The special causes of air emissions in rural areas are outdated brick-making ovens and biomass cooking ovens. Cookstoves are sources of indoor air pollution in rural areas, brick kilns using coal-burning lead to intense local air pollution, damage farm productivity, and the health of inhabitants due to toxic gases emission. In rural areas, people use wood, straw, hay, leaf, and charcoal to cook. These fuels are burning in open fires or inefficient stoves in under-ventilated kitchens. It is a significant cause of indoor air pollution which directly impacts the health of the public.


Nguyen Thi Hoai Linh

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