An automatic monitoring system is being piloted at some ‘hot spots’ in Ho Chi Minh City to evaluate the processed content of their wastewater and provide necessary evidence to impose punishment upon rule breakers.

The system, which is considered the ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’ that can help authorities check around the clock the processed content of industrial waste, is being tested out at 16 of the city’s industrial parks, export processing zones and high-tech parks, whose total volume of waste is over 43,000 cubic meters per day.

Technicians and operators of the system can provide the requested information on the statistics of the processed wastewater in a matter of seconds.

In the experimental system, wastewater from the chosen factories is transferred to a channel to be evaluated before being released into the environment.

An infrared camera is installed at the entry gate of each channel to capture the images of the processed wastewater that will be constantly broadcast back to the control center to have their quality monitored.

Flow measurement devices are also added to the system to continuously record the total volume of wastewater discharged by the factories.

In addition, many devices are installed to provide certain statistics on pollution control, including the COD (chemical oxygen demand), TSS (total suspended solids), pH level and temperature.

All data are sent to the control center every five minutes and recorded in its memory storage, which can then be used for many different purposes.

Managers of the factories will be notified of the statistics so that they can adjust the release of processed wastewater whenever a pollution index exceeds the allowed limit, thus reducing contamination.

Information provided by the monitoring system can also help experts calculate the approximate average amount of processed wastewater produced by each type of industry.

The calculations will then be used as a standard to check if the factories are releasing unprocessed wastewater directly into the environment to reduce cost, whenever their content is considerably lower than the average level.

The recorded statistics can later be used as necessary evidence of violations, based on which penalties will be imposed on law breakers, including compensation for environmental damage.

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