Michael, graduated from the University of Sydney and did his Ph.D at Southern Cross University, originally came to Việt Nam as recruited by the United Nations Development Programme and the ministry as a chief technical advisor for a project in 2007.

After the project ended in 2010, the sponsor praised his work in building the capacity of the staff, because many of the staff gained promotions at the end of the project.

When he returned to Australia after the project finished, the ministry asked him to come back to Việt Nam to help build staff capacity at the ministry’s Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural Resources and Environment (ISPONRE).

He agreed and came back to Việt Nam as an institutional strengthening volunteer, looking at building the overall capacity, building relationships with international organisations and other organisations to broaden and deepen the ability of the institute to undertake projects.

“The institute really needs to work with projects to get funds for the staff and to be able to operate and form partnerships,” he said.

He helped the institute to set up memorandum of understandings (MoUs) and other agreements with organisations.

During that time, he also assisted the institute’s staff to get scholarships to go overseas for post-graduate studies.

At the end of that period of about three or four years, the institute once again asked Michael to stay because many staff members still wanted to increase their capacity.

He then agreed to do capacity building for the institute.

He supported the institute in developing important policy documents, including the National Strategy for Environmental Protection in 2011-15, vision to 2020 and the Party Resolution 24 NQ/TW, issued on June 3, 2013, on climate change and strengthening management of natural resources and environmental protection.

In 2016, then Deputy Minister Trần Hồng Hà, who had been in charge of the institute, became Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, and said to Michael: “I want you to come and be my advisor.”

Hà then did an official dispatch and shifted Michael to work for Hà.

“Then I worked for Hà until last year when he became Deputy Prime Minister,” Michael said.

The works kept Micheal in Việt Nam for more than a decade, particularly when Michael worked for Hà.

“I could do a lot more in terms of developing new vision and new law and strategy at the highest level.”

Hà said he wanted to learn from international experiences, Michael said.

Hà said he needed Michael to look at what was happening internationally, to be able to learn from their experiences and then modify it for Việt Nam.

“So my role was to do that, to provide cases of international experience and look at how problems could be solved in Việt Nam by applying those experiences,” Michael said.

Then they worked on various new laws, and particularly, the revision of the environmental law.

Michael supported the ministry to develop the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection which identified 17 industrial sectors that are more prone to pollution and will be subject to specific regulations.

Michael received the “For the Cause of Environment” medal in recognition of his great contributions to the ministry in 2013.

Later, on April 19, 2023, Deputy Prime Minister Trần Hồng Hà presented a Friendship Medal to Michael in honour of his contributions to the sustainable development of the environmental sector and the friendship between Việt Nam and Australia.

“So there were two awards, which were very good and encouraging for me to say that people appreciated the work that I had done,” Michael added.

At the moment, Michael’s major work is to assist the ministry in the negotiations for the Global Plastics Treaty, which is set to be completed at the end of this year.

Plastic waste and things to do

Statistics from the ministry indicate that approximately 1.8 million tonnes of plastic waste are disposed into the environment annually in Việt Nam, with 0.28-0.73 million tonnes ending up in the sea.

However, only 27 per cent of the total plastic waste is recycled and reused by businesses and facilities.

Việt Nam's 2020 Law on Environmental Protection regulates that starting from this year, manufacturers and importers are obliged to implement Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). EPR is an environmental approach where manufacturers and importers take responsibility for their packaging products even after they become waste. It serves as a tool and foundation for promoting a circular economy.

The move is one of the efforts of the Government to reduce plastic waste in the country.

Michael said his view was that EPR, particularly in the case of plastics packaging, was very important, but it seemed now be entirely relegated to downstream initiatives like waste collection and financing waste collection efforts.

“That is one part, but it is only one small part,” he added.

In fact, the major part to solve the problem in the long term was to not just have downstream, but upstream and midstream.

The upstream approach aims to address packaging that is simply to differentiate a product from another product.

"Once you get the product, you throw that packaging away. There is no more use. It is basically there to be thrown away.

“It is designed to be waste.

“We cannot do that any more. You cannot design waste. We have to take that out of the ecosystem in the manufacturing phase,” he said.

EPR means redesigning in the first place to take out what had been put in as basically waste to begin with.

“If you get a liquid, it needs to be in some sort of container. We should reuse the container, because a reuse is better than a recycle.”

For example, beer bottle, now internationally, like in South Korea, all the beer bottles are reused. They are reused, not recycled, just washed. They can do it because they standardised the bottle. All the beer companies have same bottle, they all could use it, only the label comes off.

For plastics pesticide, insecticide, agricultural chemical containers, those needed to be collected, washed and reused. But at the moment, they are just left in the field, paddy drains and canals. People just use it and throw it away. That was toxic too, because those need to be safely returned.

So EPR here is really required, Micheal emphasised.

"There needs to be either a deposit put on those agricultural chemical containers or we need to have a fee for the collection of those containers. The people who went out and did the recycling collection could get some money for that. At the moment, those containers had no value, so they are not collected.

“We do one of two things: we put a value on the container, it gets collected because it gives me money,” he said.

"And if that was not instituted by law, we required the company to provide money to pay people to collect it," he added.

“Now, at the moment, we are following the second method most, but for some things, we need to still consider if that’s not working, we have to go to the first method.”

As in other countries, when putting money on the container in itself, it becomes a more valuable thing.

“Anyone can pick it up and get the money back. You will find there are no more containers.”

Other countries had various laws called bottle bills. They put a deposit on the bottle.

“Việt Nam has to focus on upstream initiatives, as I mentioned, to design out the waste.”

There was certain packaging which was excessive and basically not required or not useful and did not really add anything except for marketing purposes that had to be considered as irresponsible.

“Responsible marketing means you do not differentiate your product by using excessive packaging.”

With midstream, manufacturers should redesign their product to use less packaging or use organic substances, maybe bio-plastic.

There were other matters, like shredded coconut fibre that can be used. It was highly available. Bamboo was easy to use and sterile, so it did not need to be plastic.

Wishing for more contributions

At the moment, Michael has been basically assisting the ministry’s team, led by the head of the ministry’s International Cooperation Department for negotiating the Global Plastics Treaty.

But the treaty would be ended by the end of this year.

“I’m not sure what happened after that.”

But there are many things that need to be done. If there is an opportunity to contribute to Việt Nam, he would continue living in Việt Nam.

“Because I am really here to do that, not just to live in Việt Nam for myself. I am not here just for fun, but to continue to work and make a contribution.”

“It’s been an honour and a privilege for me to be able to provide my experience and skill and expertise to assist high level leaders to develop environmental policy for the nation.

"It’s my honour.” — VNS