'Waiting to die': the dirty business of recycling in Vietnam


A woman picking up plastic waste at a landfill on the outskirts of Hanoi. -- PHOTO: AFP

HANOI, Vietnam (AFP): Crouched between mountains of discarded plastic, Lanh strips the labels off bottles of Coke, Evian and local Vietnamese tea drinks so they can be melted into tiny pellets for reuse.

More waste arrives daily, piling up like technicolour snowdrifts along the roads and rivers of Xa Cau, one of hundreds of "craft" recycling villages encircling Vietnam's capital Hanoi where waste is sorted, shredded and melted.

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