VietNamNet Bridge - In exchange for wealth, the billionaires in the ‘vehicle dismantling’ village in Bac Giang have to live in serious pollution and the fear that fire and explosion may occur at anytime.

The vehicle dismantling village

On a recent scorching hot day in Thuyen hamlet in Bac Giang province, visitors were ‘welcomed’ by the terrible smell of grease and burnt rubber.

This is a vast ‘vehicle cemetery’ of the north with numerous vehicles, big and small. The vehicles cannot operate well any longer and are carried to the hamlet, where workers dismantle the vehicles and collect vehicle components for reuse.

Automobile parts, excavators, bulldozers and wheels were seen piled up on both sides of the roads. There were many different vehicle types, from buses to trucks, and there were also old cars like Camry and BMW.

The ‘vehicle dismantling’ village not only has ‘dead bodies’ of cars, but also specific noise. Visitors were tortured by the ear-splitting noise produced by metal cutting machine, hammers and other instruments. 

According to workers at dismantling workshops, no vehicle there is useless. Even vehicles which cannot run also can bring benefits. A vehicle consists of thousands of components and their job is finding components which still can work well for reuse.

“Nothing is waste here. Even screws and broken mirrors can bring money,” a worker said. 

A lot of people have become billionaires by collecting and selling the ‘waste’. There are billion-dong villas in the area, while there are many cars valued at VND300-500 million.

However, workers at the workshops complain that they feel tired after every working day because of the working environment.

Nguyen Thi Thanh, a local woman, said locals now have to live in a seriously polluted environment. 

“Rusted car components and old tires can be seen everywhere. The atmosphere is so stuffy. People have to breathe the air with the smell from petrol and burnt waste,” she said.

“However, we have no other choice. Dismantling vehicles is the major job of the local workers,” she explained.

Nguyen Van Hoa, deputy chair of the Dinh Tri commune People’s Committee, said the waste from the village is listed as industrial waste, refused by domestic waste treatment companies. 

Local people have arranged a separate land plot for the workshops and waste dump. However, due to the limited area, many facilities are located among residential quarters.

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