Festival promotes recycling

Over 3,000 students and young people joined the second annual Green Living Day Festival held at Youth Park in Ha Noi's Hai Ba Trung District on Saturday. With a recycling theme, the festival aimed to promote environmental awareness.

"We learned about how to live a green lifestyle through games and contests," said National Economics University student Nguyen Van Truong.

Pham Ngoc Thang, a first-year student at Ha Noi's FPT University, won the top prize in the Green Idea Contest for his toitietkiem.com website.

Celebrities such as singers Duy Khoa and Hoang Yen, and Miss Viet Nam 2010 Ngoc Han appeared at the event, which included a student fashion show featuring clothing made of recycled products.

The festival also included stalls offering information about recycling at school, office and home, as well as recycled products and green shopping tips.

Green Living Day is part of Toyota Motor Viet Nam's Go Green programme and was held in co-ordination with the General Department of Environment and the Ministry of Education and Training.

Red River found to be polluted in Yen Bai

A 94km stretch of the Red River in northern Yen Bai Province is polluted with lead and other toxic metals five times higher than standards permit, police said.

The alarm was raised by residents after the colour of the water turned grey in late February, said Environmental Crime Prevention and Fighting Police head Bui Duy Hien.

Initial investigations showed there were no waste emission sources in the province, Hien said.

Black-crested gibbons returned to the wild

Two black-crested gibbons seized last Wednesday have been released into the wild.

The gibbons were removed from a local company that failed to prove the gibbons' origin, said Southern Binh Duong Province's environment police.

They were handed over to the Cu Chi Wildlife Rescue Centre which released them on Monday.

The endangered ape, scientifically known as Nomascus (Hylobates) concolor lives in northern and northern-central regions of Viet Nam.

River bank faces erosion in An Giang

Mekong River banks have a high risk of erosion in 56 places, a Mekong Delta report has stated, seven more places than identified last year.

The report from the Delta's An Giang Province Natural Resources and Environment Department said five places were 100m in length and 50m in width.

The department and the local Hydro-Meteorology Forecast Centre were co-operating to watch the situation take "timely measures".

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News