Thai Ninh commune in Thanh Ba district has become the first in the northern province of Phu Tho to build rubbish incinerators.

And the more impressive feature of the move is that funds for the project are contributed by residents who once threw their empty pesticide containers in the paddy fields, like many other farmers throughout Vietnam .

"Farmers did not know that the chemicals remaining in the bottles can pollute both air and water which will cause them cancer and other dangerous diseases," said the director of the provincial Department of Plant Protection, Le Toan.

So they were not impressed when Thai Ninh authorities came up with the idea of building the incinerator, Toan said.

In October 2007, the People's Committee in the commune asked the local medical clinic to build a pilot incinerator in Residential Quarter 3 to destroy discarded containers.

The model worked effectively, laying the groundwork for the commune to expand it.

By May last year, with money collected from residents, the commune built a total 14 incinerators.

The location of the incinerators is far from residents' homes and convenient to use. Local health-care workers are responsible for the burning.

"The incinerators have helped change farmers' attitude about environment protection," Toan said.

Each incinerator is 80cm high and 90cm wide and cost 400,000 VND (21 USD), said Toan.

Meanwhile, residents in Voi Town in Lang Giang district in the northern province of Bac Giang are also enthusiastically protecting the environment.

The almost 6,000 residents of nine villages in the town used to throw rubbish away along country lanes that caused serious health and visual pollution.

To improve the situation, in 2000, the town's People's Committee founded a rubbish collecting team with seven workers.

The team collects rubbish on roads and from all households in the town at 7am and 4pm every two days.

Each worker on the team gets an income of 1 million VND (53 USD) a month, which is contributed by the households in the town.

In another case, Dai Dong Commune in Thach That district on the outskirts of Hanoi has become a model of rubbish collection - and sorting.

In December last year, the district expanded a pilot project of separating rubbish, like in many Western countries. Each family in the commune was given two rubbish bins to contain organic rubbish (food) and inorganic rubbish (glass, plastic, paper).

A steering committee was set up to show residents how to separate rubbish, said chairman of the commune People's Committee Khuat Duy Hai.

The commune also organises 13 rubbish collecting teams with 35 members, who act as promoters for the scheme and mobilise locals to maintain the practice of separating rubbish. Deputy Chairwoman of the commune's Women's Association Nguyen Thi Dao said, "I totally believe that the project will be maintained and the residents will become more and more aware about protecting the environment."/.