The practice has been initiated by the Nha Trang City authorities to combat environmental pollution, which is common in the seas of Vietnam these days.
It is 6 o'clock in the morning on Tri Nguyen Island. Workers from the Nha Trang Urban Environment Co., Ltd. are already on duty. Each morning, trash on the island is put into bins and the roads are cleaned by both the staff of the urban environment company and by residents.
"Trash is gathered and put into baskets and bins. This is a convenient way to collect trash and causes no pollution", said Dinh Thi Nho - a resident in Tri Nguyen Island, Vinh Nguyen Ward, Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province.
Most of the trash is collected by about 9am. Residential clusters on the island are no longer concerned about negative environmental conditions, marking a huge change compared with previous years.
"Trash used to pile up into mounds due to the tides and waves, even if had previously been buried. But the situation has improved now", said Nguyen Minh Ngoc - Head of 1 Tri Nguyen residential cluster, Vinh Nguyen Ward, Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province.
There are five inhabited islands in Nha Trang Bay. The 600 households on Tri Nguyen Island alone produce more than one tonne of trash a day.
Because of a lack of sites to bury trash, the island residents used to consider the sea their trash bin. This is why the Nha Trang City authorities launched the trash collecting model in 2010.
"If we don't collect trash, it will be dumped and released into the sea and then wash back to shore. This is why our company organised the trash collecting campaign which resolves 90 to 95% of trash produced", said Tran Van Huong - Nha Trang Urban Environment Co., Ltd.
On an average day, more than 80 trash bins worth of garbage - roughly three tonnes - is removed from the sea and taken to land. If not processed correctly, this amount of trash would cause massive environmental pollution.
Collecting trash on the island and from the sea is done by human effort. These daily activities serve as a reminder for residents not to pollute the sea by using it as a trash bin.
