Recently, efforts to reduce plastic waste have been intensified by officials from associations, wards, and communes in Hue City.

Lack of legal regulations

The general trend now is that food and beverage shops and stalls along the streets of Hue City are increasingly using plastic to serve customers. Many bubble tea and coffee shops sell takeout – in our area, hundreds of plastic cups of various types are sold every day. It's not just coffee and bubble tea shops; hundreds of grocery stores, restaurants, markets, and supermarkets are also widely using plastic materials, especially plastic bags. This isn't limited to Hue City; in districts and towns like Phong Dien, Huong Tra, and Huong Thuy, almost all shops and stalls use and sell single-use plastic items.

Since June 2019, the Prime Minister has launched a nationwide campaign against single-use plastics. For several years now, Thua Thien Hue province has been actively promoting a campaign against the use of single-use plastics, which has been supported by agencies, organizations, offices, and many citizens. More significantly, the recent project: “Hue – A Plastic-Free City in Central Vietnam,” supported by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Vietnam), has implemented many meaningful social activities contributing to reducing single-use plastics in the locality; especially the tourism sector, which has taken the lead in strongly advocating for the anti-plastics movement. Many restaurants, hotels, and service businesses have actively responded and joined hands to make Thua Thien Hue increasingly green, clean, and bright.

However, in reality, and based on assessments at recent conferences on the anti-plastic movement, leaders of relevant departments and agencies acknowledge that it is difficult to prohibit the use of plastic materials in business and services due to the lack of a legal basis. Current solutions mainly focus on raising awareness, campaigning, and changing community habits. Local efforts to support the "Hue - Central Vietnam Plastic Reduction City" project remain challenging, and waste sorting at source has not been implemented uniformly within the community.

The lack of regulations and sanctions makes it difficult to achieve the goal of reducing single-use plastic waste as expected; while many organizations and associations are actively promoting awareness, numerous households, businesses, and service establishments continue to use single-use plastic materials for profit, releasing waste into the environment.

Charges based on the amount of waste generated.

On August 20, 2020, the Prime Minister issued Directive 33 on strengthening the management, reuse, recycling, treatment, and reduction of environmental plastic waste. The directive warned that plastic waste pollution is the biggest challenge facing nations. The overuse of non-biodegradable plastic products and bags has serious consequences for the environment.

According to the leaders of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (TN&MT), in implementing Directive 33, Thua Thien Hue province has issued many guiding documents on the management of household solid waste in the area. At the same time, it has strengthened monitoring, management, sorting, collection, transportation, and treatment of waste; and promoted communication efforts to change habits and raise awareness of sorting household solid waste at source from Hue City to the districts and towns.

In 2023, many waste treatment projects were constructed, such as the Phu Son Waste-to-Energy Plant project, with a processing capacity of 600 tons/day using waste incineration technology; the construction of landfills at two centralized treatment areas: Phu Son (Huong Thuy town) and Huong Binh (Huong Tra town); and a solid waste incinerator with a capacity of 20 tons/day at Loc Thuy (Phu Loc)...

In reality, although positive results have been achieved so far, the crucial issue is the limited control of input waste management due to the lack of mandatory regulations on the production and use of single-use plastics. Currently, there are no official figures on single-use plastic products released into the environment in the province, but the fact that many restaurants and food establishments are using single-use plastics to reduce labor costs has become a major obstacle to the goal of reducing single-use plastics.

Mr. Le Ba Phuc, Director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, shared that the locality is currently implementing several new regulations on the sorting of solid waste at source according to the 2020 Environmental Protection Law (including the price of solid waste collection, transportation, and treatment services). In addition, the overall plan for the collection, transportation, and treatment of solid waste in the locality until 2030 is being continued.

Along with programs and movements striving to create a greener, cleaner, and brighter environment in localities, Thua Thien Hue will implement a pilot program on the fees that households and individuals must pay for the collection, transportation, and treatment of solid waste based on the weight or volume of sorted waste…

Hue City leaders believe that, in addition to collecting fees for the use of solid waste and levying taxes on production facilities and businesses, the State needs to promote research, application, development, and transfer of technologies for recycling solid waste and producing environmentally friendly materials. They should encourage the production and development of biodegradable products to replace single-use plastic products and non-biodegradable plastic bags. Government agencies and units should not use state funds to purchase single-use plastic products...

Text and photos: MINH VAN