ปัญหาและข้อจำกัดทางกฎหมายเกี่ยวกับการจัดการขยะมูลฝอยที่นครหลวงเวียงจันทน์ สปป. ลาว

Abstract

Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR, from 2015 to 2020, faced with an increasing solid waste problem severely and continuously. Such problems had greatly affected the people's livelihoods and the scenery of Vientiane Capital. The management of the waste problem in Vientiane Capital must be resolved urgently and the legal action should be taken seriously. The management of the municipal solid waste problem of Vientiane Capital had been implemented according to the National Environmental Management Plan and the Vientiane Capital City had adopted the law to the management of the solid waste problem. Each law aimed to enforce differently. Moreover, the authorized law enforcement agencies had not been in the same department, resulting in the lack of unity in managing the waste problem through the law. Including, the implemented law to the management of solid waste problems did not cover the entire system, and the enforced laws had not been amended to achieve the appropriateness of sustainable waste management. This study focused on studying the problems and legal restrictions those related to the management of solid waste in Vientiane Capital, also to focus on authorities and duties of agencies involved in solid waste management to propose guidelines in resolving problems leading to legal action on solid waste management of the Vientiane Capital to make them suitable and successful. The methods of this study were analyzing the content of the provisions, legal regulations, accordingto the National Environment Act B.E. 2556, Health Act B.E. 2562, ministerial regulations, orders, regulations related to waste management of Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR, then explained the situation of law enforcement descriptively. The results of the study revealed that; 1) Vientiane Capital lacked a law on infectious and hazardous waste management, which led to the waste management of Vientiane Capital being not systematic. This caused infectious and hazardous waste to be dumped and confined together with general waste. 2) Vientiane Capital had applied existing laws to manage waste management problems, seeing that the laws that had been enforced were inconsistent and affected the waste management system, for example: First, existing statutes did not address all solid waste problems. As a result, Vientiane Capital needed to issue provisions to deal with the problem of solid waste, but at the same time, the enforcement of statutory provisions and regulations in accordance with this existing Act had caused conflicts which led to the imposition of penalties and compensation on the waste problem which contradicted to each other. Second, the 2013 National Environment Act stipulates the waste problem too broad and did not clearly specify the penalties for the waste problem, causing the waste management authority to fall under the regulations of other acts. For example, the Health Act B.E. 2562, the Chemical Protection Act B.E. as of 25 September 2015, these laws had the authority to deal with the same waste problem, but the enforcement was different. Third, according to the Act on Local Administration B.E. 2558, the Act on the creation of Legal Acts B.E. 2555 and the National Environment Act B.E. 2556 empowered the central and local Natural Resources and Environment agencies to issue provisions, to manage the problem of solid waste in their territory with legal authority and to make agencies regarding waste management. There were conflicts both in terms of authority and law enforcement, although the National Environment Act had already specified the authority of the waste management agency, but the Natural Resources Agency and the public environment and Vientiane Capital had implemented the different waste management practices, with different agencies applying their own laws, which led to grievances and disregarding the responsibility for managing solid waste problems. Those resulted in inefficient solid waste management. In addition, government agencies lacked unity in law enforcement, including the issue of imposing penalties, fine was not equal and this made law enforcement hesitant to enforce the law. In some case, the violator had a single case but received punishment in many laws, people saw that the enforcement of the law was too heavy and lack of justice to the people who is severely punished. 3) In terms of budget, it was found that Vientiane Capital lacked management power because the central government allocates a budget and determined the cost of managing all solid waste problems for Vientiane Capital. But the capital was only an abide by the Act on Local Government and the Act allowed Vientiane Capital an authority to deal with the waste problem, but Vientiane Capital was able to use only a part of the budget. This resulted that the solid waste management system was not able to fully operate and did not go along with the city’s waste management plan. In the future, to be effective in the Vientiane Capital waste management, Vientiane City should have a law on the management of infectious and hazardous waste to make the household waste and hazardouswaste well-sorted and disposed properly. And Vientiane Capital Administration should review the existing laws to have them integrated into a single law. The law on household solid waste management must be clearly defined in order to lead to the law enforcement on a proper solid waste management.