Hanoi city has launched a program under which rubbish is traded for gifts since August 15 in a move to encourage sorting trash at source for recycling, VnExpress reported.
Hanoi’s sanitation workers are there for waste segregation. Depending on the amount of waste, people will be given soap, shampoo, hand sanitizer, and facial cleanser.
Garbage for gifts exchange location at 59C Hoang Cau street, Dong Da district, Hanoi. Photo: Tat Dinh |
On September 5, hundreds of Hanoi residents took plastic bottles, paper, metal scrap to the building of the People's Committee of Dong Da district at No.59C Hoang Cau street to exchange for goods under a municipal trash sorting scheme.
Holding a gift bag, Tran Van Thiem, 50, a resident in O Cho Dua ward, Dong Da district, said plastic and cans, if buried with all other trash would be wasteful. “I hope that this activity is maintained for a long time to create a habit and encourage people to sort rubbish," said Thiem.
The program is part of a project on sorting waste at source executed by Hanoi Urban Environment Company (Urenco). Garbage will be divided into two categories: recyclables and non-recyclables.
Every Saturday morning, Urenco carries out trash-for-gift activity at seven points in four districts of Hoan Kiem, Hai Ba Trung, Ba Dinh, Dong Da. Residents can also install software that helps them separate the waste at source, then they can set a timetable for sanitation workers to pick up trash at home.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy Ninh, deputy head of Urenco’s Sales and Communications Division, said the project’s main goal is to reduce the amount of waste in Hanoi’s landfill sites. The city's two large landfills are now overloaded. Landfill will no longer be a suitable solution of waste in the long term.
A factory for recycling waste has been already built to turn garbage into resources, Ms. Ninh said, adding that classifying recycled waste is the first step of the project.
Urenco is working on a plan to separate waste for power generation, in which rubbish will be separated into many categories such as: recyclable, organic, burnable and non-burnable.
Every day, Hanoi generates 6,500 tons of domestic waste, of which 5,000 tons are transported to Nam Son, Hanoi's biggest landfill in Soc Son district, for burial. The other 1,300 tons are buried in Xuan Son landfill (in Son Tay town), the rest is processed in some small incinerators.
On August 20, the Prime Minister issued a directive on strengthening the management, recovery, recycling, treatment and minimization of plastic waste, considering plastic waste and waste as natural resources.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is also developing a plan for solid waste management focusing on treating waste and plastic waste for recovery; promoting the development of circular economic models; sorting waste at source, collecting, reusing, recycling and treating.
Luu Thi Thanh Chi, deputy head of Hanoi's Environment Department, said at a meeting in 2019 that plastic waste had become "a headache" for the capital city. Hanoi has targeted to ban single-use plastic by 2025 but in order to achieve this, it will need involvement of the whole society.
