Members of Nam Dinh province’s youth union and officials from the Xuan Thuy National Park pick up trash on the beach in Giao Hai commune, Giao Thuy district. (Photo: VNA) The statement was made byDr Nguyen My Hang, Deputy Director of the Department of Science, Technology andInternational Cooperation at the Vietnam Administration of Seas, at aconference held in Hanoi on June 8.
The meeting was organisedby the US Embassy in Vietnam to discuss efforts and measures to reduce oceanplastic waste, marking World Ocean Day (June 8).
Answering audience inquiries,Hang said classifying waste at the sources was one of the much-neededbehaviours to reduce plastic waste, which will help manage plastic waste in theocean.
“The Law on EnvironmentalProtection 2020 has a specific provision for waste classification. If someonedoes not classify waste, they will have to pay taxes and fines. Theenvironmental ministry is writing more detailed instructions under this law toactualise and monitor waste classification,” she said.
However, classificationmethods need to be thought out carefully, and people should be given detailedinstructions on how to do it, she added.
“There are many criteria toclassify waste that can be applied to families, factories, production houses,and enterprises that import waste. Some said waste classificationresponsibility should be delegated to the groups in the plastic managementchain," she said.
“For example, I have mytrash in our family, and my children have theirs. But we live on differentfloors, so how can we classify them? Does it mean I need to have three bins onmy floor, and my children have three on theirs?
“That’s an example toillustrate that waste classification in each family is undoubtedly needed and amust-do. But with it comes several other requirements. So the environmentalministry will give out detailed instructions in the future.
A “Sea Week” campaign willbe launched on June 11 in the south-central province of Phu Yen to mark WorldOcean Day, and various activities will also be held to raise environmentalawareness, Hang added.
Projects that wereimplemented in Vietnam to manage plastic ocean waste were presented at theconference by representatives from the National Plastic Action Partnership(NPAP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
One of the key challengesto reducing ocean plastic waste pollution identified by the speakers wasthe unsmooth process of managing solid waste.
Nguyen Duc Duong, anadvisor for Energy, Environment and Climate Change at USAID, said: “Plasticwaste is part of the solid waste management process, and we shouldn’t separatethem.
“The major problems we’veencountered are in the stages of collecting, transferring, and treating solidwaste. And these challenges lead to a rise in plastic waste pollution, which isone of the consequences of bigger problems in the system.”
International researchshows that more than 80 percent of waste found in the world’s oceans isplastic.
A research project done bythe International Union for Conservation of Nature and Vietnameseauthorities shows that plastic waste made up more than 90 percent of thetrash collected in conversation areas in Vietnam./.
VNA
