The figures were announced by vice head of the Vietnam's Institute of Fisheries Economics and Planning, Nguyen Thanh Binh at a seminar on plastic waste in agriculture held on May 31 in Hanoi.

Binh presented a survey recently carried out at the Quy Nhon Fishing Port by the Binh Dinh Provincial Fisheries Department which showed that 10 fishing boats are discharging an average of 138 kilos of plastic bottles and about 58 kilos of plastic bags when returning from a trip every day. Over four tonnes of plastic waste are being discharged at the port a month.

"Lots of plastic waste like styrofoam buoys are also being dumped into the sea by aquaculture farmers," he said. "Local authorities are currently collecting waste and taking them to dumping sites for burning."

According to a report from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the fisheries sector discharged some 880,000 tonnes of solid waste including plastic waste in 2022.

MARD's Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien warned that if no drastic measure is taken to curb the problem, each tonne of fish collected will generate a tonne of plastic waste.

"We're targeting reducing by at least 12-30 percent of the use of plastic products in the sector by 2025," the official said. "We also try to collect and classify at least 60 percent of plastic waste by that year."

Binh Dinh Province is also carrying out some measures to curb the discharge of plastic waste by the fisheries sector. Vice head of Binh Dinh Provincial Fisheries Department, Tran Van Vinh said that they have set up a team to deal with waste from fishing boats and provide them with rubbish bags.

"I believe that we can prevent the dumping of some 60 tonnes of plastic waste into the sea through this work," he said.

Source: Dtinews