Toward a National Single-use Plastics Roadmap in Vietnam: Strategic Options for Reducing Priority Single-use Plastics

Rapid economic growth, urbanization, and changing lifestyles in Vietnam have led to a plastic pollution crisis. An estimated 3.1 million metric tons of plastic waste is discharged on land in Vietnam annually. At least 10 percent of this mismanaged waste leaks into the waterway, making Vietnam one of the top five plastic polluters of the world’s oceans. The volume of leakage could more than double by 2030 under the business-as-usual scenario.

The Vietnam: Plastic Pollution Diagnostics report, published by World Bank, identifies the sources and pathways of plastic pollution in Vietnam. Based on the field surveys, it finds out that:

• Plastic waste accounts for the majority of waste found in river and coastal sites, accounting for 94 percent of the waste by the total number of items and 71 percent by weight.
• The top ten common plastic items account for more than 80 percent of the total plastic waste leaking into waterways.
• More than 60 percent of plastics items are single use plastics