With someone taking out the trash, Hanoians breathe a sigh of relief
Nguyen Thanh Quang is looking forward to resuming his morning habit of cycling around his neighborhood in Hanoi’s Dong Da District.
He had been staying at home all day after uncollected trash piled up on several streets, the resultant stink exacerbating the capital’s long-standing air pollution problem.
“I cycle to be healthier, but the uncollected garbage makes me sick,” said Quang, 61, a resident of Thai Ha Street.
The garbage has been piling up in the capital city for the last three days after residents in the vicinity started blocking the road to Hanoi’s largest waste treatment complex on October 23 to protest authorities’ policies on site clearance compensation to expand the complex. This has been a long-standing grievance that the authorities have failed to redress.
At around 8 p.m. Monday, protesters stopped blocking the road running to the capital city’s largest waste treatment complex, after a meeting with local authorities in the afternoon.
Hundreds of garbage trucks have been allowed to enter the complex to do their job after the three-day blockade.
Long Nguyen
