Michael Parsons, an Australian senior advisor to Việt Nam’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. — Photo courtesy of Michael Parsons

Michael Parsons, an Australian senior advisor to Việt Nam’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, talks to Việt Nam News reporter Nguyễn Hằng about the problem of plastic waste and how the country can move towards developing a modern and environmentally-friendly recycling industry.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, every year around 1.8 million tonnes of plastic waste are dumped in Việt Nam. How can this be reduced?

If we look at waste, in particular, plastic waste, most waste is a small number of items related to each other, with around 80 per cent of it packaging. Packaging waste is a very high volume of that waste and a lot of it is not really needed at all. Following COVID, we have a lot more products being delivered to homes. Some companies are using plastic to insulate the shipping, for safety and to stop the product getting broken, so they use bubble wrap and all sorts of shredded fibre. But that is not necessary. There are other materials which could be used like shredded coconut fibre, or bamboo which is easy to use and sterile, so it does not need to be plastic. Why use plastic when there are other options that are biodegradable.

In countries like Australia, you want a plastic bag in a supermarket, you must pay. Then people remember to bring their own bag. Or you can go the way, like Cù Lao Chàm Island and say no plastic bags, only fibre bags. It is easy to do because it is an island and they can enforce the no plastic bag rule on that island because you go through a narrow gateway - the boats. Whereas on the mainland it is more difficult to enforce a plastic bag ban.

To change the habit of using plastic bags you need to raise public awareness of the problem of plastic and make the alternatives more available. In addition, we must look at ways in which we discourage people from providing plastic bags for free. So if people want the bag, they must pay for the bag and pay a high price. This is where we get down to the problem with recycling, because the people working inside the plastics industry already know it is always going to be much cheaper to produce new plastic than to recycle plastic. This is why we need to redesign the production model, we have to use less plastic. We simply have to cut the demand for plastic.

At the moment, the collection and recycling of scrap materials is mainly undertaken by workers who lack any formal environmental training and it happens in villages, leading to secondary environmental pollution from the collection and processing of materials such as plastic and nylon. How will the Extended Producer Responsibility address this problem?

Plastic waste for recycling at Tràng Minh Scrap Recycling Village, in Tràng Minh Ward, Kiến An District, Hải Phòng City.—VNS Photo Trương Vị

This is the big question, which does not just relate to Việt Nam but to many countries, which have a large informal sector working in waste collection. Indonesia and Africa have an international waste pickers association and they actually have status at the global plastic treaty negotiations which are happening right now.

My colleagues in the ministry of environment, colleagues from France, experts and others are all looking at how can we transition the informal waste sector into a modern recycling industry. Because if the plastics treaty succeeds, it will require a just transition for the workforce and the way in which we can enable the informal waste worker to continue with the freedom that they have. As self-employed entrepreneurs, they could go and collect waste and they could continue doing the job without becoming labourers for someone else if they do not want to do that. So, there needs to be a range of opportunities where people can continue to apply their trade but get better return for it.

We have seen some models for this in Việt Nam already. There are some non-governmental organisations working on that model in HCM City, operating in a way similar to Grab. People can book an informal waste worker to come to their home, via an app, to collect the waste. These are pilot efforts, but you can see the potential.

By running this model to collect waste, there is a better return for informal waste workers who know exactly where the waste needs to be collected from via the app, instead of riding their bicycles around looking for waste to collect, as is the case right now. If they do not spot anything to collect while out looking for things, it is a waste of their time. With the app there is a location specified where they go directly to make a collection, so it is a more sustainable way of operating and saves lots of time.

We also need to give collectors more protective clothing. When they go to small depots and they do disassembling, the job can be quite hazardous, such as breaking apart computers. You need good quality protective equipment. That should be part of the job. This should be a safe workplace and a safe work style. These are the things we need to consider in the professionalisation of recycling industry. In the future, when there are larger items for recycling, you need to ensure a higher level of collection capacity, for example, trucks to pick up old refrigerators and larger equipment because you cannot put them on the back of a bicycle. So, using a model similar to Grab, it will be more convenient.

One more thing, in order to reduce plastic waste, shops can either say, well, bring your own container and we will sell you the product in bulk, or we will sell you the product in a container, but we will make sure that we can collect that container once it is empty. Now the sellers do not have their own workforce to go and collect the container, but there is an informal sector out there that can do that. They just need to be paid to do it, so they can ask for the recyclers. They give money to the recyclers, then can subcontract to informal waste workers, who then take it back to them, so that you can formalise a depot contract with the informal waste workers. The waste collection system can be funded through EPR and the informal worker is the one who can benefit by having a work contract or by getting better payments for waste collection, gaining a wider focus for their waste collection and becoming part of a more efficient waste collection process.

As a senior policy advisor to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, could you tell us how does the implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility affect Việt Nam's negotiation process towards the global plastics treaty?

EPR has to be part of the treaty. But it, as part of the treaty, may not be at a global level. It could be because each country that ratifies the treaty will probably enact its own laws. Việt Nam has already done that for EPR. Many countries have already been doing ERP and they doing it for decades.

Việt Nam is already ahead of those countries that have not yet implemented EPR. Many countries are too poor or have not had the political will to enact it, so generally, it takes a nudge or a push from governments for companies in a country to move on it.

It is a cost to companies and they’d rather just to let the issue disappear. But if they have to act, they want to be able to make it happen by receiving more guidance. If EPR becomes a part of the treaty, then, the companies will quickly want to make sure that the EPR is efficient and cost effective as possible for them. That is not a bad thing, because we want a cost effective EPR. We need the cooperation of the manufacturing companies, either to make products which can be collected for recycling, or to make alternative products, which do not need to be collected and recycled, for example, a biodegradable product. — VNS