So far, it has been one year since the first days the Women's Union (WU) No. 5 chapter in Hoa Phat Ward, Cam Le District, recycled locking rings of used beer and soft drink cans to create bags, purses, flowerpots and so on to propagate people’s awareness of environmental protection, and at the same time create funds to help disadvantaged people.

As shared by Ms Nguyen Thi Hien, Head of the above-mentioned WU, she realized that it is practicable to recycle the locking rings of used beer and soft drink cans into useful items such as bags, purses, and flowerpots by combining them with wool. Therefore, the WU members’ talents for knitting, crocheting, and sewing have been taken advantage of to recycle these used objects since March last year.

Accordingly, some WU members have collected and then gathered used cans at Ms Hien's house to remove, wash and dry locking rings on the lids of the cans. After that, they take these locking rings and wool to their home and create recycled products by taking advantage of their spare time.

On the last Sunday of every month, they usually gather at the community house in the residential area or at Ms Hien’s property to exchange and help each other improve their products.

Initially, the women in the Executive Committee of the Union had spent their own money buying wool as well as other materials and tools to support the creation of recycled products. These products are mainly given as gifts to the union’s female members in some programmes. But things have changed after Ms Hien posted recycled products on her personal Facebook account.

Since then, they have had to invest much more money and effort to create more attractive items to meet the demands of customers.

On top of that, all the amount of money raised from their recycled products is used to help needy women suffering from serious illnesses as well as orphaned children. Thus far, the WU No.5 chapter has supported VND 500,000/ case for three people suffering from cancer and two vulnerable orphaned children.

“We initially thought that doing this activity is simply to serve for the purposes of limiting solid waste into the environment as much as we can, in tandem with to propagate people’s awareness of environmental protection to women members and local residents. However, we had been surprised as our recycled products can generate funds to help women with serious diseases, difficult circumstances and orphaned children. In the upcoming time, we plan to do the research on how to make children's backpacks from locking rings on beer and soft drinks cans to expand the range of our products, which will help us to attract much more customers," shared Hien.

According to Ms Phan Thi Kim Dieu, Chairwoman of the Women's Union chapter of Hoa Phat Ward, over the past time, the unit has regularly implemented loads of activities, models and movements to limit waste into the environment. In particular, the model of recycling locking rings of used cans of the WU No. 5 chapter has stood out along with other models.

“WU’s members have continuously done the research and come up with new creative practical products being suitable for all families. Skilful hands of the WU’s women have contributed to the effective classification of domestic solid waste at source, thereby demonstrating the responsibility of WUs at all levels for the city's development, in tandem with contributing to building a green, clean, rich, beautiful, civilized and modern Da Nang," said Ms Dieu.

Reporting by MAI HIEN- Translating by T.VY