Waste collectors

 

The Year 3 students have been learning about recycling in Ho Chi Minh City and I have picked up on their learning and learnt heaps myself about people I see everyday in the streets. I have not only developed a better understanding of the roles the recyclers play, but  I have also focused my thinking about the items that I throw out, especially the items that could contain sensitive data.

Around our streets we have 2 types of rubbish collectors. The first are the waste collectors, mostly men, and they trundle around with 3 wheeled bins collecting household waste and picking up supermarket bags of rubbish that are left kerbside. Its hard to describe  the scene but people basically leave rubbish on the sides of the streets. They leave rubbish, rather than throw it out as they do in UAE . As the collectors gather the household waste they separate it into their own bags which are attached to the side of the bin eg cardboard, bottles etc and throw general rubbish one rotten banana into the bin. These guys while being paid to collect rubbish ferret through the household rubbish  looking for items they can on sell grafting a little extra from the job. So I do need to be careful what I bin from my apartment as we have a waste collector who empties our trash.

The second group are usually quite old ladies and I have often wondered why. These  people are called ve chai, meaning rubbish collectors of another type, also the lowest level and very poor, which helps to explain why very old women are doing the job. These people buy specific household waste from households or pick up from piles of rubbish on the streets. They target items not general waste. Bottles, cans and  cardboard being the most prolific. Ve chai collectors are  frequently seen riding around the city on push bikes and they’ll stop and pick up a discarded bottle, or a can or something that they can resell, a bit like a rag and bone man or a scrap metal merchant.

Both types of waste collectors take their collectables to small recycling depots who then onsell to larger depots who specialize in one item. In Vietnam almost everything is recycled or bits used for other items. They really operate on that No. 8 fencing wire mentality. As a society  they certainly have had lots of practice. They used to strip down USA army surplus, bombs etc.

I am amazed to see the way society helps others, the way the richer leave cardboard boxes out for the ve chai. I am also in awe the way the ve chai graft out an existence recycling and cleaning up around the city.