Authorities have come up with three main remedies to tackle a huge amount of trash that turned a salt lagoon in Duc Pho Town, Quang Ngai Province, central Vietnam into a floating garbage dump and seriously affected the surrounding areas, said a local official.

To prevent trash from being thrown further into the Sa Huynh salt lagoon, authorities will send garbage trucks to the affected area to transport domestic waste to a makeshift landfill for incineration, Do Tam Hien, chairman of the Duc Pho administration, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Saturday.

Waste that can be pressed will be taken to a landfill in the town.

Surveillance cameras will be installed at locations where local people often throw away garbage.

“We will put trash bins at these locations and arrange trash trucks to collect the garbage to prevent the locals from throwing it into the lagoon as they often do,” Hien said.

Besides, local authorities will put together a team to clean up garbage blanketing the lagoon.

The team, composed mainly of members of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union in the town, will use boats and coracles to pick up trash in the lagoon over the weekend.

In the long run, the town is working on a project to build a garbage treatment complex in its Pho Nhon Commune.

The project, whose environmental impact assessment is underway, is expected to be put into service by the end of this year and help address the existing environmental pollution in the town.

The local official added that the north and center of the province all have waste treatment plants developed by the provincial administration and private investors.

Meanwhile, no waste treatment facilities are available in the southern part, where Duc Pho Town is located.

The coastal town has to tap its own budget to implement the above-mentioned waste treatment project, he elaborated.

During a recent meeting between authorities and local residents, Bay Hiep, a native of Duc Pho, said he could not stand the pollution in the lagoon area.

“Since there is no landfill in the town, some people decided to throw their garbage directly into rivers and the lagoon," Hiep said.

“If they keep doing so, the pollution will get worse.

“Authorities should adopt solutions to this problem."

Local residents said that this floating garbage dump has remained since 2018. The garbage then began piling up and covering most parts of the lagoon.

The current heatwave in the province has made the stench of the floating dumpsite more intense, the locals complained.

Given the worsening pollution, people living near the lagoon no longer use water taken from the wells there.

Instead, they have had to buy water from other localities for daily activities.

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