USAID’s Work on Ocean Plastics in Vietnam

VIetnam’s growing urban populations, demand for consumer goods, and dependencies on single-use plastics continue to outpace its waste system capacities, leading to increased environmental leakage. Vietnam has a coastline of over 2,100 miles and contains the deltas of the  Mekong and Red Rivers, where tons of plastics are picked up from communities along their paths and ultimately flow through to the ocean.

Through USAID’s Municipal Waste Recycling Program (MWRP), eight MWRP grantees support market-driven, women-led, locally scalable, and government-endorsed improvements to solid waste management (SWM) in seven cities across Vietnam. These grants have directly benefited nearly two million individuals via improved SWM services and practices.

USAID’s Clean Cities Blue Ocean (CCBO) program will aim to build on MWRP’s successes and support Vietnam’s National Action Plan on Marine Plastic Debris Management until 2030, issued in late 2019. The national plan includes efforts to: scale good practices in plastic waste collection, separation, transportation, and treatment in coastal and marine areas; facilitate the development of suitable solid waste storage facilities and collection sites; mobilize international and private sector partnerships to produce alternative products, increase recycling, and shift to a circular economy and green growth; and research, develop, apply, and transfer technologies and techniques to treat and minimize ocean plastics. CCBO will focus work in Phú Quốc, Da Nang, Bien Hoa, and Hue City.