HCM City volunteers clean over 150 polluted canals

A group of young volunteers in HCM City have cleaned over 150 polluted canals in HCM City and surrounding provinces, collecting over 2,000 tonnes of rubbish over the past year.

The Saigon Xanh or Green Saigon group have cleaned over 150 polluted canals in HCM City and surrounding provinces, collecting over 2,000 tonnes of rubbish over the past year.

Ho Van Vy, 24, and Nguyen Luong Ngoc, 28, established the Saigon Xanh or Green Saigon group over a year ago, aiming to help clean polluted local rivers and canals and raise people's awareness about environmental protection.

"Our work faced various difficulties at first," Luong said. "The amount of rubbish in local channels and rivers was 10 times bigger than we saw. Rubbish of all kinds included plastic bags, styrofoam buoys, and dead animals. Someone even threw some big broken fridges into a river."

Despite hardships, the two members were determined to do the work. They sometimes spent 5-6 days a week collecting rubbish.

"During those first days, we only had long protective boots and gloves for our work," Vy added. "We did the work ourselves and shared about it on some social networks. And people have helped spread the images to others and our group has grown bigger with more members."

Ho Van Vy

Now their group has attracted over 1,000 members who are mostly young people and university students. Foreign residents have also joined them. They've all got vaccines against tetanus and equipped themselves with more tools and proper protective clothing.

"Thanks to more people, we've so far cleaned over 150 polluted canals in HCM City and surrounding provinces of Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Tien Giang, and Ba Ria-Vung Tau, collecting over 2,000 tonnes of rubbish," Vy shared.

"At present we're doing the cleaning work every Thursday and Sunday," Ngoc said. "We usually carry out surveys of the sites and inform local authorities of our activities in advance."

A foreign resident join the work.

The group founder shares that one of the biggest challenges they're facing is the poor awareness of local people.

"Some 30 percent of the canals and rivers are polluted again as people continue to throw rubbish in them after we clean them," he said. "However, we still look on the bright side and hope that the situation will gradually change for the better."

Vy said that in 2024, they will focus more on communications work, calling on people to join them to protect local rivers and canals.