A video clip has spread among netizens that shows waves crashing onto the shore, bringing waste to the coast in the Philippines. People in the clip can be seen trying to throw the waste back into the sea with shovels.

The images can be viewed as a warning about sea pollution caused by waste in Southeast Asia, where the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, together with China, are discharging more plastic waste into the sea than all the other countries in the world combined.

Hoang Anh, a businesswoman, who visited the Philippines some years ago, said she was impressed by scientific waste collection and treatment method applied in the country.

Three days a week are reserved for organic biodegradable waste collection, three other days for inorganic recyclable waste, and the remaining day for hazardous waste. 

The model has helped the waste treatment system in the country work effectively.

Vietnam, with high waste volume, is also trying waste sorting and treatment methods.

In urban areas, Vietnamese dispose 1.4 kilograms of waste per capita a day, twice as much as other countries with the same income level. 

The World Bank estimated that with the growth rate of nearly 6 percent, the volume of waste in urban areas would reach 73,000 tons a day by 2025.

In HCMC, the amount of waste has increased by 38 percent within 10 years. Nine million residents in the city discharge 8,300 tons of garbage a day, which amounts to 21 percent of total urban waste in the country. 

At least 70-95 percent of the waste is collected by both state-owned and private establishments. The former is in charge of big roads, public venues and the central area, while the latter collects waste in small alleys.

HCMC has been running the pilot ‘sorting waste at source’ program which is believed to be an effective measure to help treat waste.

According to Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research, the sorting of waste at source should be a higher priority than recycling, decomposing, and incinerating to generate power, and burying. 

However, Nguyen Thi Phuong Loan from the Center for the Environmental Technology Research and Management, said the ‘sorting waste at source’ program has not had the desired effects. 

There are separate dustbins for people to put organic and inorganic waste, but the two kinds of waste are always put together. 

Private collection companies also put organic and inorganic waste on the same trucks when carrying waste to landfills, which discourages the people who sort waste, as requested.

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