A number of roads in Ho Chi Minh City have been accumulating fabric scrap and polymeric foam mixed with domestic trash after the municipal environmental authorities ordered the two waste materials to be separately collected.

The wastes, partly from small factories, were recently dumped along the side of many roads in Binh Tan District, Tan Phu District and a portion of Vietnam’s lifeline National Route 1 that crosses District 12 in the southern metropolis.

Garbage men said they used to mix the above dumps, considered industrial waste, and household waste together during a collection trip.

However, they are now not allowed to do so any more due to a newly introduced regulation by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

The agency requires garbage collectors to separate solid domestic waste from what it terms ‘industrial waste,’ which they have informally interpreted to include items of a polymeric or fiber nature.

The owner of a local hat factory said waste from the production had been piled high at the facility for two weeks because she did not know where to dispose of it properly.

The administration of Binh Tan District has so far handed out over a dozen financial punishments to small factories that secretly got rid of their waste by the roadside – an action caught by cameras installed for spotting violations in waste disposal.

As the situation showed no signs of improvement, the government has arranged an agreement for factory waste to be picked up by garbage collecting firms.

Nguyen Gia Thai Binh, the Binh Tan People's Committee’s deputy chairman, said he welcomed the new regulation but warned it should not be carried out haphazardly and hastily, like what is happening.

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