The Green Living Festival is a continuation of the successful campaign Waste Recycling Festival, also held yearly by HCMC from 2008 to 2017.
The new festival aims at a higher goal of propagandizing about green activities and raising the public awareness of green lifestyles. This will ultimately make HCMC a more civilized, modern, lovable, and liveable area.
Taking part in this year’s Green Living Festival are nearly 100 businesses and units, displaying their products and presenting their innovative ideas on environmentally friendly habits.
One example is the team ‘Cho Que Tu Te’ (aka Kind Village Market), a collection of many handicraft families in Xuan Thoi Thuong Commune of Hoc Mon District. They introduced bags and mats made totally from lepironia articulata without the use of any chemicals. These products hopefully help to erase the habit of using plastic bags among people.
Another notable instance is the solution by HCMC Center for Public Transport Management to make better use of brochures and to deliver free bus cards for urban residents in order to promote the reduction of private vehicles.
According to the HCMC Department of Natural Resources and Environment, besides several activities to propagandize the sustainable consumerism and environmentally friendly lifestyle, the city also focuses on the lessening of plastic waste.
Ms. Ngo Nguyen Ngoc Thanh, Deputy Director of the HCMC Environmental Protection Agency, shared that the initial task of calling upon the public to decrease the use of plastic bags was the ban of plastic bottles, straws, food bags in the festival day. Instead, the organization board provides paper bags, cups free of charge for those in need.
In the past few years, HCMC has achieved impressive results in socio-economic development. Yet it also faces the pressure of over population and quick urbanization, leading to severe environmental problems.
Therefore, to minimize negative effects of environmental pollution as well as alleviating the waste treatment task, the municipal authorities are encouraging businesses to share their own responsibility toward the community via practical actions like treating their own waste, managing industrial pollution, saving energy, and reducing greenhouse gases.
HCMC has also introduced the plan to implement the national strategy on green development in the community, along with green manufacturing, carbon footprint reduction, energy conservation, and green energy promotion.
According to Mr. Nguyen Toan Thang, Director of the HCMC Department of Natural Resources and Environment, the Green Living Festival is held to boost the cooperation between state units and local citizens in HCMC in the task to protect the environment at present and in the future as well as the goal of pursuing a greener lifestyle.
