From community initiatives
The world's first clothes hanger made from 100% recycled milk cartons is the story that the staff and workers of Lagom Vietnam Company wrote in an effort to protect the common environment.
Mr. Tran Van Hieu - Deputy Director of Lagom Vietnam Company - said that when it comes to textile and fashion waste, clothes hangers are always forgotten, although their existence is directly related to this highly impactful industry.
Every year, up to 8 billion plastic hangers are thrown away, equivalent to 4 Empire State Buildings in the US. Hangers are often buried in landfills or burned with household waste, causing very serious environmental problems such as textile and plastic waste.
Understanding this problem, Lagom Vietnam came up with a breakthrough idea: Recycling milk cartons into clothes hangers.
Starting in 2019, Lagom’s milk carton collection journey has been carried out at schools. At the collection points, the milk cartons will be sorted and prepared for recycling. After 5 years of implementation, Lagom has collected nearly 1,000 tons of paper milk cartons, with a collection network at 2,000 schools and 150 community points across the country.
Protecting the environment is protecting workers
Protecting the environment is protecting workers - is the affirmation of Mr. Vu Van Minh - Head of Legal Policy and Labor Relations Department, Vietnam Electricity Trade Union.
Mr. Minh said that in the process of investing in construction, production, and transmission of electricity to reduce negative impacts on the ecological environment, investors, managers, and employees in the industry must be aware of environmental protection. Vietnam Electricity Group, with the orientation of becoming a responsible enterprise to the community, "safe, green, and clean production", so safety and environmental work are extremely important and must always pay special attention at all times and in all places.
In the construction sector, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh - Chairwoman of the Hanoi Construction Trade Union said that the 1 million initiatives program of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor, union members of the Hanoi Construction sector have contributed many initiatives, creativity, and proposals related to the environmental sector, improving work efficiency in environmental protection.
“Over the past ten years, Hanoi Urban Lighting and Equipment Company Limited has invested tens of billions of VND to upgrade and rebuild the factory system, dust extraction, ventilation, waste treatment systems, offices and beautiful, airy internal road systems... Thanks to the good implementation of the green - clean - beautiful movement, occupational safety and hygiene, the health of workers is always guaranteed, through annual health check-ups, no occupational diseases were detected; in the past 5 years, no occupational accidents have occurred" - Ms. Thanh said.
According to Mr. Nguyen Tuan Quang - Deputy Director of the Department of Climate Change (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment), accompanying state management agencies in activities to achieve the goal of achieving net zero emission by 2050 cannot be without the participation of organizations and enterprises.
State-owned corporations have taken the lead in researching and developing new energy sources and implementing green transformation. Enterprises have also promoted digital transformation in management and operations, saving energy and raw materials, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Workers play an important role in protecting the environment.
According to Mr. Nguyen Viet Dung - Director of the Center for Communication on Natural Resources and Environment (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment), workers and laborers are the basic productive force of society, directly participating in the production process, creating material and spiritual wealth, promoting the development of science and technology. In environmental protection, workers play a very important role in implementing environmental protection measures, sustainable development, contributing to preventing and repelling environmental pollution and are the key force in monitoring compliance with environmental protection laws at the production site.
“In the coming time, in the context that our country still has many difficulties and challenges in economic development, a requirement and also my wish is to have initiatives and solutions to use natural resources and energy reasonably, effectively, and economically, limit the use of disposable plastics and implement green and sustainable consumption by people across the country in general and workers in particular,” said Mr. Dung.
