Son La Urban Environment Company was founded on July 1, 2004 under Decision 1806/QD-UB of Son La Province People’s Committee. It was transformed into a one-member limited liability company under Decision 2490/QD-UBND dated October 5, 2006. Its major business lines include waste collection and transportation, sewer dredging, green park management, and electric lighting management. After seven years of operation, it has achieved many honourable titles such as the Third-grade Labour Order from the State President in 2005, the Certificate of Merits from the Prime Minister, and the Environment Flag from the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour in 2008.
Creating a new face of urban environment for Son La
Son La City is developing in all aspects, with rapid urbanisation. Urban and residential areas are being built. Public works, schools and hospitals are also newly built. All these hinder the growth of urban greenery. Traffic, production and business activities may also make the living environment worse. In urban development, maintaining a sustainable living environment is an urgent need. The people’s awareness of urban environmental protection is growing, thus resulting in a better living environment. These are also represented by investments for the expansion of clean areas, rubbish transportation, vehicle upgrading, infrastructure improvement, dumping site construction and cemetery construction.
Since its inception, all the staff of Son La Urban Environment Company has strived to complete the assigned tasks to meet the city’s development and expansion requirements. The company pays special attention to improving the quality of environmental sanitation, renovating equipment, enhancing productivity, and bettering working environment for its staff; designing and installing public lighting systems and upgrading urban infrastructures like roads, pavements, ditches and culverts; and investing in vehicles and equipment to serve environmental sanitation like dredgers and water sprayers. Parks, flower gardens and green areas are carefully tended to create an environment-friendly landscape and energy-saving lifestyles. This is the foundation for Son La City to catch up with other cities in the country.
Towards sustainable development
With the rapid urbanisation of Son La City, the material lives of urban dwellers are improving. This is good news for the province. However, the flip side of this development is that it entails risks of devastating environmental pollution if no appropriate interventions are taken. As an environmental safeguard, Son La Urban Environment Company spares no effort to fulfil all its tasks. At the same time, Son La province also promotes its extensive propaganda programmes to raise people’s awareness and responsibility for environmental sanitation, and to advance socialisation of environmental sanitation to reduce State expenditures on this work. Besides, environmental charges are revised up gradually in accordance with public incomes. In the long term strategy, the company needs to modernise environmental equipment and technology in order to deal effectively with solid waste, liquid waste and gas emissions, to build medical waste incinerators in hospitals, and installs lines to classify, process and landfill wastes. It will continue upgrading of urban infrastructures like roads, sidewalks, ditches and culverts; and investing in vehicles and equipment to serve environmental sanitation like dredgers and water sprayers. Besides, institutional units in the city are required to apply ISO 1400 standard on environmental quality.
To meet these standards for sustainable development will require concerted cooperation of all authorities, sectors, organisations and people, including Son La Urban Environment Company.
Van Tham
Vietnamese
