Greenhub and Cai Rang district leaders and officials in Can Tho city cooperate to achieve the goal of the project “For a zero waste Mekong river”
In early March, GreenHub met with leaders of the Cai Rang District People’s Committee and Can Tho City Environmental Protection Sub-Department on the process of piloting a “Circular Economy” model in the floating markets in Can Tho rivers. At the meeting, the parties also actively discussed maintaining project activitities and to find a model of waste storage transfer point to reduce daily collection costs.
The floating markets model in Can Tho city is part of the project “For a Zero Waste Mekong River” organized by GreenHub and coordinated by the Resource Research Center and Rural Development (RECERD), with funding from DOW Chemical. This initiative focusesr on river waste management, with the aim of piloting to promote a “Circular Economy” model, focusing on turning waste into a valued resource, and encouraging people to collect, sort, reuse and recycle solid waste in order to extend the time in using a product, and limit negative impacts on the environment.
From May 2022, the project organized training on waste collection for 40 merchants in the floating market area, supported 27 households to pilot production of biological hand sanitizers, and donated 97 trash cans for households living along the river and on commercial boats. The project also focuses on supporting the model of daily waste collection, transportation and treatment in the floating market. The project’s intervention resulted in daily waste collection from floating rafts of the Cai Rang floating market. Up to now, the total amount of solid waste collected is about 6.5 tons. To meet the actual demand, the project has expanded the collection service to merchant boats on the floating market.
In addition, the project is also promoting communication to raise awareness about waste classification and collection, creating positive changes in people’s behavior in the classification and collection of waste in the river.
