US helps improve electricity safety in VN
HA NOI — Chemists from the United States and Viet Nam held a PCB management course for electricity workers in Ha Noi last Friday.
Polychlorinated biphenyls are commonly found in electrical transformers manufactured before 1995, and are known to have harmful effects on human and environmental health.
Experts from both countries discussed the challenges of developing environmental management systems for the inventory, storage, handling and treatment of PCBs.
Both countries are signatories to the Stockholm Convention for Persistent Organic Pollutants, and both have banned the use of the chemicals.
The workshop followed an earlier training course in HCM City, and both were attended by technical staff involved in the maintenance of transformers, power supply and distribution equipment and by those who work with transformer oils.
The HCM City workshop was opened by Tran Ky Phuc, the director of Electricity of Viet Nam’s Department of Science, Technology, Environment and Telecommunications, and Nathan Sage, the manager of the US Agency for International Development’s Environment Programme.
The American experts also visited the HCM City Water Supply Company to examine the PCBs being stored there for future treatment.
The workshop was hosted by the USAID’s US-Asia Environmental Partnership programme and Electricity of Viet Nam. — VNS
