Waste from construction projects is being abandoned without permission at vacant lots in many districts across Hanoi as the issue remains unresolved.

The waste varies from debris and rocks to used furniture.

Wherever it piles up, household waste follows suit just a few days later.

“On sunny days, the stench permeates my store, while on rainy days, the dumped garbage bags float on the road,” said Nguyen Hoang Anh, the 42-year-old owner of a beer store on Duong Dinh Nghe Street in Cau Giay District. 

“We tried to find the litterers but could not catch them because they often dump the waste before dawn when few people are on the street.”

It is not only the empty land on Duong Dinh Nghe Street and those belonging to the nearby Nam Trung residential area, but many other vacant lots in Ba Dinh, Nam Tu Liem, Bac Tu Liem, and Hoang Mai Districts have also been forced into garbage dumps by litterers.

Hang, who has worked as a sanitation worker in Hanoi for ten years, said that she and her colleagues had no choice but to collect the dumped construction waste though that is not a part of their job.

“There are days that we have to collect several metric tons of construction waste,” Hang said.

“But that is without extra pay.”

“Hanoi still does not have a construction waste treatment plant,” a representative of the municipal construction department told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper during a discussion on Monday.

The process of handling construction waste includes crushing them, with the authorities still pondering how to use the output of the crushing stage, according to the officer.

In the meantime, the municipal People’s Committee has passed the responsibility of tackling construction waste dumping down to district-level administrations.

While newspapers have often reported the dumping and had district-level leaders pledge to solve the issue, piles of construction waste reappear every time.

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