PP’s sustainable city goals in sight

THE capital is on track in its plan to become a sustainable city by 2030, said Phnom Penh City Hall spokesman Meth Meas Pheakdey. He said continuous education to raise awareness will play an important part in this.

“Education and the dissemination of knowledge and good practices to raise the people’s awareness of packing and disposing of rubbish properly takes a long time. Nonetheless, we must continue with it as it is relevant,” he said.

Rubbish Youths founder San Dara Vit said Phnom Penh municipal governor Khuong Sreng had previously informed his organisation of the sustainable city development plan, which includes projects to construct bridges and underground roads to reduce traffic congestion.

Speaking on the issue of waste management, Dara Vit said the governor had promised to cooperate with Rubbish Youths to clean up the capital and this effort must start from Chamkarmon district to make it Phnom Penh’s model district.

Dara Vit also said that from November, Rubbish Youths will kickstart a campaign to raise public awareness in the capital on health and clean environment.

The campaign will continue until everyone changes their behaviour and adopts good waste management practices, he said.

The director of the Department of Green Economy at the National Council for Sustainable Development, Taing Meng Eang, said on Monday that the sustainable city implementation plan for Phnom Penh 2018-2030 has many major components.

These include developing the transport sector to reduce traffic congestion, creating green spaces and converting some of them into heritage areas.

The waste management issue is also important, he said on Monday at a workshop to review the results of his department’s sustainable development work in 2019 and goal setting for 2020 at the Ministry of Environment.

Meng Eang said the policy ranges from raising public awareness, use of good quality raw materials, waste transportation and disposal, and recycling and processing waste into a source of energy.

Since last year, there have been some projects involving t he c ol l aborati on of t he National Council for Sustainable Development and the Ph n o m Pe n h muni c i p a l administration, such as setting up the public bus service in the capital.

In t he second phase, t he government will focus on the development of seven ot her sustainable cities such as in Siem Reap, Preah Sihanouk, Svay Rieng, which are important components of the Kingdom’s tourism and economic sector.

There are 48 projects which have to be implemented for the Phnom Penh to become a sustainable city in 2030.

These include multi-purpose public parks for exercising, skating, and recreation, as well as public grounds planted with trees and allocated areas for growing vegetables.

Green areas will also be created as pedestrian walkways, jogging paths and cycling lanes.

Last but not least, there will be a restoration of cultural heritage where any vacant French colony era buildings or modern Khmer architecture structures will be renovated and transformed into tourist destinations.