The story of beach pickers.
Every day, along the waterway from Cua Hoi Port to Ngu Island, a group of people quietly and diligently collect and pick up trash from the sea.
Since the beginning of June 2024, every morning between 6:00 and 6:30, a "special" boat departs from Cua Hoi fishing port. On board are six middle-aged and elderly women and two men who operate the boat. They are not fishermen but environmental sanitation workers for an industrial cleaning company. This company has a contract to collect garbage at VinWonders Cua Hoi, specifically in the Ngu Island area.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Long, 62 years old, from Nghi Phong commune, Nghi Loc district, is the head of the garbage collection team. Ms. Long shared about this rather arduous job: "Every day, we go to the island to bring the garbage back to the mainland. On average, there are about 5-6 cubic meters of garbage on the island each day."3The garbage consists of many different components, most notably plastic bottles, plastic bags, and leftover food. After collecting the garbage, around 8-9 am, we return to the fishing port, unload it, take it to the sorting area, and then pack it into containers for trucks to transport and process. The work usually finishes at 12-12:30 pm. The hardship here lies in the strenuous work, carried out in rough seas and amidst pollution.
During their fishing trips, the boat not only transports garbage from the island to the mainland. This team of workers also takes advantage of the opportunity to collect floating trash such as bottles and plastic bags in the sea and estuaries. Ms. Mai Thi Huong, 50 years old, a member of the team, shared: "As environmental sanitation workers, we can't stand seeing the marine environment polluted. So, whenever we see trash, we collect it. It's like an instinct..."
The act of collecting trash from the sea and the stories shared by these environmental sanitation workers are reminiscent of the story of a type of seagrass called Neptune – a plant characteristic of the Mediterranean region. Neptune grows in dense patches on the seabed. When its leaves fall, the grass fibers intertwine to form small spheres or balls. These balls of grass fibers "trap" plastic waste. When there are large waves, these balls are pushed from the sea to the land, carrying the plastic waste inside.
According to marine biologists, it is estimated that each year, these Neptune grass balls "trap" nearly 900 million pieces of plastic waste in the Mediterranean Sea. The usefulness of Neptune grass in cleaning up plastic waste in the ocean shows that nature is still striving every day to protect the environment... Ocean plastic pollution has become an urgent global problem. Humans need to act more. According to information from the General Department of Seas and Islands of Vietnam, about 267 species of marine life have become entangled in or ingested microplastics in the sea. On average, each fish contains 2.1 pieces of plastic.
According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Long, who is quietly collecting waste from the sea, Cua Hoi port and Cua Lo beach in Nghe An province are very clean and don't have much plastic waste. However, whenever there are storms and heavy rains, the sea is flooded with all kinds of floating waste from upstream, from the mainland to the river mouth and the sea. At this time, there is a great need for people to collect this hazardous waste to protect the sea. We want our own homes to be clean. The sea is our big home...
In this environmental sanitation team, Ms. Nguyen Thi Long is the most experienced. She herself has worked with the company on beach sanitation projects in many coastal tourist areas across the country, such as Sam Son - Thanh Hoa, Da Nang, and Quy Nhon. Sharing her experience, Ms. Long said: "In previous years, I worked under contract with the company, cleaning up major tourist beaches nationwide. It must be said that in areas with developed coastal tourism, the local people are very conscious of preserving the environment. In Nghe An, the work of ensuring beach sanitation needs to be carried out more regularly and widely."
Now that they are older, Mrs. Long and the other workers in her team no longer travel far for work but return to work near their homes. They are happy to still be able to work, contribute, live healthy lives, and live useful lives...
