The students who have successfully made the machine for gathering rubbish on beaches

Nguyen Van Tinh, the team leader, said that “We often attend environmental volunteer campaigns, so I recognise how hard it is to collect a great amount of waste. So we thought of producing a machine to help the rubbish collection more effectively and safely.”

With the machine, litter is gathered by a rake and then put through a sieve to be separated from the sand. After that, the rubbish is put into a box.

The machine is currently run by petrol. The students are studying how to change the fuel into electricity and solar battery. It can also pick up big rubbish like tree branches.

According to the team member Nguyen Ngoc Huynh, the equipment can gather most types of litter.

The machine can also pick up big rubbish like tree branches

The group is now focusing on the installation of a solar battery for the machine. This is also the message on saving electricity and protecting the environment the students want to convey.

The market is now home to many rubbish gathering machines which, however, have high prices. Meanwhile, the students’ product is just around VND350 million (USD15,217).

The machine has been piloted on a beach in Danang with very positive results.

“The equipment operated quite stably and could collect most litter, including plastic bags and bottles. However, it still failed to deal with some large items,” the group member Nguyen Thanh Tam said.

The machine won second prize at a competition for Danang City’s Scientific Research Awards for Students in 2019.