On January 15, six members of the group met at a canal near the An Phu Dong Bridge in Go Vap District to pick up trash.
"Whenever I pass through a canal, it is often filled with trash and the water is often dirty. So I asked my friends to help me clean it up,” said Nguyen Luong Ngoc, 27, the group’s leader.
“Our group has been doing this for three months. At first, there were only two members, but now there are almost a dozen, most of whom are students or recent graduates.”
Volunteers said they came to the site under the bridge to survey the area and to get the right tools and safety gear ready for the cleanup.
Since there is no way to get down to the canal from the An Phu Dong Bridge, members have to carry equipment and protective clothing down one item at a time.
After putting on protective gear, the male members of Saigon Xanh climbed over the abutment to collect trash on the other side of the canal.
Though the crew has previously picked up trash at 20 points, they just recently purchased specialized clothing.
"Having the right gear makes us feel safer when wading through the trash-filled canals," Phan Nhan, left, said.
Two of the women in the group were picking trash along the shore since they didn't have safety clothing.
"Today is my first day of volunteering. Digging my hands into the trash for the first time is a horrible feeling,” said Dang Thanh Ngan, 21, a student at Ho Chi Minh University of Technology.
“I constantly worry that I'll accidentally grab a needle or broken glass. As I observed everyone else's enthusiasm, I decided to stop worrying and work harder.”
"The trash in the canal has been there for a long time, so it has built up a large base to the point that I can step on it without falling into the dirty water," Nhan, 21, said.
The members use a long tree to check how deep the water is before moving ahead. If it's too deep, they can only clean the canal in its shallower areas.
Two members wade down to pick up trash at another section of the canal that is about one meter deep.
There was trash everywhere in the canal, and because it had been there for so long, the water was murky and putrid. The team repeatedly used a basket to rake in garbage but they never seemed to be able to remove all the trash.
Ho Vi tried to hook a bunch of trash that was deep underwater with a stick.
"They are deep in the mud and take a lot of strength to pull up," said the 23-year-old.
Needles and animal carcasses were just some of the things that are often collected by the crew during their canal cleaning efforts.
"These are hazardous waste,” the team leader said. “Everyone tries to stay as careful as possible while collecting the waste.”
After more than two hours of cleaning the canal, a corner was finally cleaned up at around 10:30 a.m. Trash totaling several tens of kilograms was collected in around 20 plastic bags on the shore.
These bags were brought up to the street level and were handed over to a sanitation worker.
The team leader says that the entire canal can't be cleaned in one morning because there was too much trash there. In the next few days, the group will talk to the government about getting more volunteers to come and clean up areas of the canal that are deeper.
Trash bags are loaded on a garbage truck, which will then take it to be processed further.
"In the near future, we want to organize more clean-up events and clean more waterways,” said Ngoc. “The world needs more young people to get involved in protecting the environment, and hopefully, people will become more aware and stop littering carelessly.”
The country generates around 70,000 tons of waste daily, more than half in urban areas, with Ho Chi Minh City leading with 8,900 tons followed by Hanoi with 6,500 tons, according to the Vietnam Environment Administration (VEA).
