“Thick, plastic-free paper is donated to preschools for children’s coloring and craft activities. Single-sided sheets are turned into scratch paper for students, and glossy paper is sent to art studios for reuse,” Tong Bich Thuy, the group’s founder, told VOV.

She noted that domestic paper mills discharge approximately 20,000 tons of plastic, pulp, and scrap paper waste each year. Added to this is a vast amount of discarded paper from everyday life – old documents, flyers, expired wall calendars, and half-used school composition books. Most of it ends up in municipal waste streams, wasting resources, and burdening urban environmental management systems.

Thuy’s team decided to collect, sort, and reuse discarded paper, turning it into notebooks, covers, and other useful items. She urged people to set aside sheets of paper that are still blank, or used – like most calendars – just on one side, rather than throwing them away. After a social media campaign, hundreds of people began bringing used paper to collection points.

“At first, only 20 people were involved in collecting paper. Later, we asked students and others with free time to help. We want every collection point to sort the paper before sending it on, so we only need to select what’s usable. Doing everything according to a process makes the work much easier,” said Thuy.  

Group member Nguyen Thu Huong recalls how the first finished notebooks, donated to visually-impaired students, motivated the group to keep going. Many families, after learning about the project, began sorting their paper at home and bringing it in.

“Saving paper means saving resources. Throwing it away is wasteful. If it can be reused, that’s wonderful. I want to contribute in my own way. If each person changes just a little, the impact will multiply,” said Huong.

The initial group of 20 were mostly close friends. The work was done in the evening or on weekends, with everything was done by volunteers. Each pile of paper was sorted and separated for reuse.

The initiative has now gone far beyond making notebooks. It has changed the way the community thinks about waste, said Le Anh Dung, a student at the University of Industrial Fine Arts.

“One old calendar may seem worthless. But when the community joins in, we can collect tens of thousands of sheets. That’s the real value—reducing waste while creating useful products,” said Dung.

The “Journey to Rescue Dead Waste” keeps moving forward. Each month, new volunteers join. Schools and businesses are signing up as collection points. New notebooks are being made for children in remote areas, visually-impaired students, and families in need.

Though modest in scale, this Hanoi youth initiative delivers a powerful message: reducing waste doesn’t have to be a costly project. It can start with small, simple habits – saving a blank sheet, recycling an old calendar, and sharing with someone in need.