At 6 a.m. on Saturday, over 10 employees from the HCMC Urban Environment Company began to remove the trash from the Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe canal section running through Tan Binh District.
The 40 m-long segment of canal was full of garbage and water hyacinths, with the water letting off a foul smell.
For over a month, the area was infested with trash. The collecting unit did not have their contract renewed, leaving the trash to pile up day after day, to over 100 tons.
The Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal, spanning 10 km, runs through districts 1, 3, Binh Thanh, Phu Nhuan and Tan Binh. It ends at the Saigon River. The canal used to be polluted but was renovated 13 years ago. It is now considered to be the most beautiful canal in downtown HCMC.
Two boats were deployed to collect the trash near Bridge No.1. Since Friday, collectors have cleaned up around 13 tons.
As some of the bridges were too close to the water surface, the team had to begin work at 3 a.m., when water levels were low, to gain access to the trash-infested areas.
Truong Van Ho, head of the collection team, said that ever since the canal began its renovation in 2011, this is the time when the trash has been filled up the most.
The garbage comes from the sewers and is thrown by the people, and as they were left to fester, the collectors found it difficult to clean. It will take them about 10 days to get rid of all the trash.
The water surface is full of trash of all kinds, as well as water hyacinths. As it is the end segment of the canal, the trash has all gathered here. The heat from the weather makes the smell worse.
Nguyen Xuan Son pilots a boat to put the trash into containers. Some of the trash, such as plastic bags, is slippery and takes a long time to be cleaned up.
"The trash is concentrated in one place, so it's more difficult to pilot the boat. Sometimes plastic bags and water hyacinths get caught up in the propeller," Son said.
Large items, such as tree trunks and mattresses, have to be manually removed and be placed in a separate area.
Son (R) and his colleagues pull up the trash and plants away from the canal. He said that usually there would be only three tons of trash a day, and they can be removed within the day.
Pham Van Tinh (R) dumps the trash into a truck. He said that it would take only four truck rides to get rid of all the trash from the entire canal normally. But it has already taken five truck rides since Friday to remove all the trash from this segment.
Phan Thanh Quang (R), 52, said he has been trying not to go near the canal for the past month due to the stench.
"I hope the trash will be cleaned up soon so the canal can return to what it was."
