Vietnam is one of countries that emit large amounts of plastic waste into the ocean

The “Plastic waste from land into the ocean report” published in Science in 2015 by a group of researchers from the US and Australia pointed out that in 2010, with 1.8 million tons of plastic waste, Vietnam ranked fourth, after China, Indonesia and the Philippines, among 20 countries which contributed the highest amounts of plastic waste. 

The report of the Ocean Conservancy in 2015 also showed the same conclusion: 60 percent of ocean plastic waste came from China, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.

People in coastal fishing villages of Vietnam began suffering from plastic waste even before scientists gave warnings. 

Nguyen Thi Phuong from a fishing village in Thanh Hoa province has seen her village becoming a waste dump.

In the nearby mangrove forest where villagers often go to catch shrimp and shells, numerous plastic bags drift in the tide and are trapped in trees, while shoes, plastic pipes, water bottles, fishing nets and old clothes can be seen on the coastline.

A Vietnamese man told an AFP correspondent that it was getting more difficult to catch fish. Every time he draws up his net, he sees plastic bottles and water pipes, and the number of fish has decreased significantly.

Phuong complained that her family members have to live in smelly air, and that the environment was no longer safe for kids.

However, the dangers people can see are ‘small problems’, while the real influences are even more serious, because many plastic particles are so small they cannot be seen with the naked eye.

Pham Hung Viet from Hanoi National University, one of the authors of ‘Transport and release of chemicals from plastics to the environment and to wildlife’, the report implemented together with Japanese scientists, shared the same view.

The scientists found evidence that microscopic plastic particles can absorb and accumulate POPs compounds from the marine environment and can penetrate marine organisms.

According to the Ocean Conservancy, measures to control and reduce plastic waste depends on the organizational capability of every country, and it is always very costly to implement them.

It is expected that Vietnam, like other four countries, has to spend $5 billion a year to cut 45 percent of plastic waste in the next 10 years.

RELATED NEWS

Hanoi strives to reduce plastic use

Plastic waste grows as authorities fail to act