Vietnam has targeted to end the use of single-use plastics by 2025 as part of efforts to cope with this thorny issue globally. 
Vietnamese PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the event on June 9. Photo: VGP
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UN Resident Coordinator in Vietnam Kamal Malhotra, UNDP Country Director in Vietnam Caitlin Wiesen join the event. Photo: Tien Phong
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UN Resident Coordinator in Vietnam Kamal Malhotra addresses the event. Photo: Baotainguyenmoitruong
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Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung. Photo: Kinh Te Do Thi/Van Trong
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In addition, an alliance of businesses against plastic waste has been set up to make the national campaign substantive.
Vegetables are wrapped in banana leaves (instead of contained in plastic bags) at Lotte Mart in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Wset
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The government of Vietnam has pledged to keep developing together with protecting environment, considering environmental protection one of three pillars in pursuing sustainable growth.
Related agencies have supplemented regulations on the production, import, management, and use of plastic.
Hanoi in particular plans to sell no plastic bags in all trade plazas and supermarkets by the end of 2020, Chairman of the city People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung said at the Sunday event.
Vietnam’s firm moves
In another move, the government has intensified a plan to phase out scrap plastic imports by 2025.
To support to plan, the government will stop issuing new licenses for the import of waste and crack down on illegal shipments, the government said on its website in March.
The move aims to prevent waste from entering Vietnam to keep the country from becoming a dumping site.
In 2018, Vietnam imported 9.2 million tons of scrap, up 14% on year, including 82,500 tones from the US, making it the sixth largest importer of US plastic throughout the year, according to Resource Recycling.
The surge in waste imports has caused congestion at several Vietnamese ports.
Thorny issue globally
Plastic waste discharged each year, including 13 million tons of plastic marine debris, is damaging the environment and human health, threatening the sustainable growth of each country, foreign representatives said at the event in Hanoi on June 9.
World production of plastic has increased exponentially, from 2.3 million tons in 1950, it grew to 162 million in 1993 and to 448 million by 2015, according to the Nationalgeographic.
It’s unclear how long it will take for that plastic to completely decompose into its constituent molecules. Estimates range from 450 years to never.
Meanwhile, ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine animals every year. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by it.
China is the largest producer of plastic and the volume produced in this country accounts for more than a quarter of the global total, much of it is exported to the world.
Yiwu International Trade City, in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang, is the world’s largest wholesale market for small commodities, and a plastic feast for the eyes. More than 70,000 booths, housed in a series of connected buildings, sell everything from inflatable pools to cooking utensils to artificial flowers.
The growth of plastic production has far outstripped the ability of waste management to keep up. That’s why the oceans are under assault. In recent years the surge in production has been driven largely by the expanded use of disposable plastic packaging in the growing economies of Asia
Only 18% of plastic is recycled globally, up from nearly zero in 1980. Plastic bottles are one of the most widely recycled products. But other items, such as drinking straws, are harder to recycle and often discarded.
In 2018, the UN launched the Global Campaign against Plastic Pollution to call for the worldwide solutions that aim to mitigate pollution. At the World Economic Forum in 2019, top leaders of many countries and executives of multinational corporations made commitments on minimizing the use of plastic products.
