Plastics recycling site in the north

Eighty percent of 900 households in Khoai village in Nhu Quynh Town, in Hung Yen Province’s Van Lam District, earn their living recycling plastics. In the village, there are 100 companies and 400 small establishments specializing in recycling waste. Locals have been recycling for 20 years.

Such intense activity has harmed the environment and health of residents. More than 4,000 locals live next to a large dumping ground used for waste.

Dinh Van Viet, a resident in Minh Khai hamlet, said that several tons of plastic waste are carried to the village every day for processing. The waste comes from many places worldwide, including Asia or Europe and Vietnam.

About 70 percent of the plastic beads made in the village are exported to China across the border. Chinese businessmen meet the producers at the village, sign contracts and get deliveries.

Plastic beads are also sold to households in the village, which then are used to make plastic products of different kinds, from plastic bags, plastic glasses, ropes and chairs to water pipes and raincoats.

Viet is one of the local residents who does not earn a living on waste and plastics. His wife complains that though she has to keep all the windows and the doors closed day and night, she still suffers from the burnt smell from the plastics recycling workshops.

Viet led reporters to the Khoai Village’s large and well designed communal house. It has been built with money contributed by billionaires in the village, who have got rich recently thanks to their recycling workshops.

The communal house is located next to Khoai Village’s pond, which is covered with thick layers of mud created by plastic waste.

A local woman said that the pond would be dredged soon, the first time over the last 20 years.

At a workshop owned by a man named T, reporters saw that waste had been discharged along with water into a canal, which is now full of waste and mud.

“All the waste can be recycled into plastic beads and then into useful products for daily use,” said Chu Thi Duc, 70.

The reporters also found many jute bags with medical waste inside, including glass tubes. Khoai villagers buy the tubes to get aluminum and caps for sale, and plastics for recycling. They show no concern for what may have been previously stored inside the tubes.

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