Category: Song Hong, Vietnam

SPLASH Case Study: The Importance of Community Involvement in Environmental Projects

The Song Hong, or Red River, gets its name from its reddish-brown heavily silt-laden water. Photo: ZiJing

Since 2020, Ocean Conservancy has been working to reduce the amount of trash in the Song Hong, or Red River as it’s commonly called in English, and prevent it from reaching the ocean through a project called the Strategic Litter Abatement in the Song Hong (SPLASH).

The author visiting the trash traps in Nam Dinh January, 2023. Photo: Sandra Whitehouse

Ocean Conservancy and our in-country partner, Centre for Marinelife Conservation and Community Development (MCD), have recently completed a public opinion survey in Nam Dinh, Vietnam, the city where the project is based. We sought to understand how SPLASH’s work to set up traps to capture plastic debris in the river and its associated communications campaign have influenced residents’ attitudes and perceptions of plastic waste. Before beginning the project, we conducted a similar survey and will compare the survey results to evaluate if there has been a measurable change. 

Public Opinion Survey in Nam Dinh August, 2023. Photo: MCD

Although we do not yet have the survey results, we do see evidence of broad community support of the SPLASH project in their interest in continuing the operation of these important trash-collecting devices – even after Ocean Conservancy’s involvement draws to a close. The Department of Natural Resources and Environment for Nam Dinh province have agreed to assume ownership and management responsibility for the trash traps starting in 2024. This commitment demonstrates that the local community and the decision makers see value in the project.

In fact, a key lesson learned from our project is the importance of regular interactions with political leaders on the national, municipal, and commune levels of government. The SPLASH project consists of five separate devices in five different locations, managed by five different communes, and thus, each required a separate set of permits at different levels. While the permitting process was lengthy and complex, it had the benefit of engaging with government officials. In addition, Ocean Conservancy and MCD had numerous meetings throughout the project to provide updates and share data and results. Building these trusted relationships and sharing knowledge facilitated the willingness of the local authorities to sustain the trash traps after the SPLASH project finishes.

One important design aspect of the traps is that the devices are simple and inexpensive to build, operate, repair, and maintain. When we decided to work in Vietnam in a relatively small city, we worked with local partners to design and build traps made of relatively inexpensive, readily available materials as a way to ensure replicability of the project.

The trash traps in Nam Dinh are simple and inexpensive to build, operate, repair, and maintain, ensuring replicability of the project.

Another advantage of the design is that the traps are emptied manually by local workers, creating local jobs within the community. When I visited Nam Dinh, it was encouraging to observe the pride that the workers took in contributing to a healthier environment for their communities.

BOSL, OC, MCD, and local operation team in Nam Dinh January, 2023. Photo: MCD

Overall, one of the major takeaways from the SPLASH project is how important it is to involve the community and local authorities at multiple levels in environmental work. This cooperation leads to more sustainable outcomes in the long term and healthier rivers and ocean as a result. We look forward to learning more from the survey results to understand how the community’s attitudes regarding plastic pollution have shifted.

Learn more about Ocean Conservancy and their work:

Learn more about MCD and their work:

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1,000,000 Kilograms

Plastic washes over a resting sea turtle. Every year, 8 to 12 million metric tons of plastic enters our oceans.

The Clean Currents Coalition has achieved a major milestone in the effort to turn off the tap of plastic pollution. Together, the Coalition has captured and removed over 1,000,000 kilograms of plastic waste from rivers worldwide – much of which would otherwise have found its way to the ocean.

In Panama City, Panama, CCC member Marea Verde celebrates reaching the 1,000,000 kilogram milestone at their trash wheel, Wanda Díaz.
Water hyacinth clogs the Citarum River in Indonesia, a challenge for the Citarum Repair team and many others in the CCC.

After three years of research, testing, and scaling up innovative solutions, reaching the 1,000,000-kilogram mark is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the Coalition teams. Along the way, they encountered and overcame many challenges – from a global pandemic to technology adjustments to water hyacinth – to show that we can take action and make an impact in our local communities struggling in the face of the growing wave of plastic pollution.

Removing 1,000,000 kilograms of plastic waste from rivers and preventing it from reaching the ocean is a feat to be celebrated in and of itself, but the Clean Currents Coalition is doing so much more than just capturing plastic. To solve the plastic pollution problem, we have to tackle the issue on multiple fronts with a focus on upstream solutions. The ultimate goal of the Coalition is not just to divert plastic from the ocean, but for there to not be plastic to be removed from the environment in the first place.

In Nairobi, Kenya, CCC member Chemolex works with local community groups to transform riverside dumpsites into green spaces. Here, the footpath is made from paving bricks manufactured by Chemolex from the plastic they remove from rivers.

How is the Clean Currents Coalition achieving this? Every Coalition team is collecting data on the plastic they remove so it can be used to inform better public policy and learn where to target behavior change campaigns. Coalition teams are developing innovative technology solutions to make data collection more efficient and accurate. They are inventing creative ways to use the collected plastic to benefit the local community and create sustained income to further grow their projects. They are leading education campaigns to raise awareness around the dangers of plastic pollution and empowering local communities to take part in the protection of their environment.

In Tijuana, Mexico, CCC member WILDCOAST used the tires they collected from Los Laureles Canyon to build a community park and soccer field for the local residents.

As a Coalition, we are proud to have reached the 1,000,000-kilogram milestone. But our work is only just beginning. There is much more plastic to capture, and systemic change is needed across all phases of the plastic lifecycle.

Waste accumulates in the Lat Phrao Canal, Bangkok, Thailand, where CCC member TerraCycle Global Foundation is trapping plastic before it reaches the ocean.

Every four hours, another 1,000,000 kilograms of plastic enters the ocean – the same as emptying 240 dump trucks into the water. Humankind has made 11 trillion kilograms of plastic since 1950. That’s equivalent to the weight of 1.1 million Eiffel Towers. Over half of that was made after 2008. By 2050, we are on pace to make over 1 trillion kilograms of plastic every year – at which point we will have made enough to cover the entire United States ankle-deep in plastic.

In this sense, 1,000,000 kilograms may seem like a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of the global plastic pollution problem. But the impact of the Clean Currents Coalition is clear – we need collective, local action as well as large systemic change to solve this crisis. The Coalition teams are making a difference in the lives of thousands of people impacted by plastic pollution in their communities. These solutions can be replicated in other communities and rivers. We can use our power as consumers to drive producers to make less plastic by using less plastic. But we also need top-down action to conquer the plastic menace. We need a strong global plastics treaty that doesn’t cut corners, and we need transformative policies that rethink our relationship with plastic.

1,000,000 kilograms is just the start of the journey for the Clean Currents Coalition.

The Clean Currents Coalition at the 2022 Coalition Symposium in Santa Barbara, California.

Using Visual Storytelling to Fight for a Trash Free Sea

A man with short black hair in black jeans, a white t-shirt, and a blue denim jacket wears a backpack an walks towards the camera on a cement pier. Behind him, small fishing boats loaded with nets and traps float on aqua blue water with big white clouds dotting a blue sky.
Famous Vietnamese actor Vo Thanh Tam filming "Về Đâu…/Where to go…" (credit: Nguyen Dinh Thinh)

Vietnam is well known for its long, beautiful coastline — stretching over 2,000 miles from north to south. It is also home to a dense system of more than 2,360 rivers. The two largest rivers are the Mekong River in the south and the Red River (Song Hong) in the north.

Plastic pollution piles up in Khanh Hoa, a common environmental challenge along Vietnam’s beautiful coastline and many rivers (credit: Le Hoai Thanh)

The incredible ecosystems and landscapes that are born from these aquatic gifts also come with a number of environmental challenges, including deforestation and air and plastic pollution, as a result of rapid economic development. Recently, the challenge of marine plastic pollution has emerged as a high priority for the government of Vietnam, which has been bringing together scientists, industry, and communities to address the issue head on.

In 2019, Vietnam issued the National Action Plan on Marine Plastic Waste Management. By 2030, the National Action Plan aims to address marine plastic debris through several avenues, one of which focuses on educating the public and increasing awareness of the problem.

Boats harbor in the safety of mangroves in Xuan Thuy National Park, Vietnam, located at the mouth of the Red River (credit: Wiki Commons)

That same year, Ocean Conservancy conducted a study that linked marine debris to declining health of mangroves in Xuan Thuy National Park. To protect this vital ecosystem and reduce ocean bound plastic, Ocean Conservancy and our partners created the Strategic Plastic Litter Abatement in Song Hong (SPLASH) program. As a part of the Clean Currents Coalition, the SPLASH project has been working to install five river trash trappers along the Red River, the second longest river in Vietnam.

In 2021, as a part of the SPLASH project, we decided to help raise awareness of marine plastic debris by making a short film. Working with director Le Hoai Thanh, a Vietnamese film director, we produced an 8-minute short film called “The Endless Journey” which tells the story of plastic pollution through the perspective of a traveler while making a call to action to protect rivers and our ocean for future generations. The video was a huge success. For those of us who were involved in making the video, we were inspired to create another film with a stronger message and an even bigger impact.

Vietnamese actor Vo Thanh Tam sorting through waste while filming “Về Đâu…/Where to go…?” (credit: Nguyen Dinh Thinh)

In early 2022, we discussed ideas with director Le Hoai Thanh for our next film to support Vietnam’s National Action Plan. We were pleasantly surprised to receive an offer from Vo Thanh Tam, a famous actor in Vietnam, to take part in our project. Vo Thanh Tam is well known for his performances in several popular TV series and movies, most recently as the lead in “Face Off 48Hrs.” Vo Thanh Tam shared with us that he was inspired by watching “The Endless Journey” and wanted to use his audience and influence to spread the message on the importance of addressing plastic pollution.

While working on the new film, we wanted to find a way to convey a strong message while also being concise and visually appealing to the Vietnamese audience. In the end, we agreed on our storyline and decided to film in the Yen Bai and Khanh Hoa provinces.

While filming, the crew received a lot of support from the local communities in those provinces. Tam also filmed a few short promotional clips and posted them to his Facebook fan page to an enthusiastic response.

The beginning of Ocean Conservancy’s short film was shot in Yen Bai, in the highlands of Northern Vietnam (credit: Le Hoai Thanh)

After a month of hard work, we finally finished our latest short film, a five-minute video titled “Về Đâu…/Where to go…?” which was released on Ocean Conservancy’s YouTube channel.

The video shows Tam traveling through the highlands of Northern Vietnam and enjoying nature and village life. However, one thing was bothering him along the way: plastic waste. The final image of the film shows him sitting in a small boat, surrounded by plastic debris, and a voiceover asks,  “What will happen?”

Not just an actor, Vo Thanh Tam offered his services for Ocean Conservancy’s short film as an environmentalist (credit: Nguyen Dinh Thinh)

Within the first 48 hours of being uploaded to Ocean Conservancy’s YouTube channel, the video attracted nearly 200,000 views. After a month, the film had over 1.1 million views. So far, there have been 12 articles in Vietnam’s national media about the video. After sharing it to his Facebook page, one of Vo Thanh Tam’s followers requested to use the film as teaching material for her students.

Ocean Conservancy’s new short film “Về Đâu…/Where to go…?”

The success of the video shows how many people care deeply about the environment and want to contribute to reducing plastic pollution. It also serves as motivation for us to keep working to increase public awareness and continue our fight for trash free seas.


Learn more about Ocean Conservancy and their work:

Learn more about Ocean Conservancy’s SPLASH partner, MCD:

Ridding the Red River of Trash

Song Hong Trash Trap
Trash trap operated by MCD and Ocean Conservancy in the Red River, Vietnam

Xuan Thuy National Park, the core zone of a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve site, is one of Vietnam’s most iconic examples of wetland biodiversity. The Park sits at the mouth of the Song Hong (or Red River in English), which serves as the lifeblood of northern Vietnam. Flowing from its source in the central Yunnan province of southwestern China past the city of Hanoi before emptying into the Gulf of Tonkin, the Song Hong has long been a major transportation artery between China and Vietnam. Its delta is a vital source of rice production for the country. Nationally, the delta region is important because although it occupies only 5% of the country’s territory, 20% of the country’s population calls it home.

Anything to do with the Song Hong generates strong interest in Vietnam, considering the sheer number of stakeholders who view the river as a critical resource for water, agriculture, fishing, transport, and recreation. As might be imagined, the consultation process for installing a trash trap in the Red River as part of Ocean Conservancy’s Clean Seas Coalition grant was extensive: 10 meetings over nine months with 20 agencies.

Boats travel up and down the Red River, Vietnam, near the site of the trash trap
Song Hong (Red River in English) (Credit: MCD)

For the Centre for Marinelife Conservation and Community Development (MCD), our partners in SPLASH (Strategic Litter Abatement in the Song Hong), this was not a problem. An environmental leader in Vietnam, MCD has long recognized the linkages between coastal communities and marine ecosystems. Since its founding in 2003, the organization has worked to protect coastal and marine environments to improve livelihoods and quality of life for local people and so consultation with stakeholders is nothing new. MCD engaged local officials, experts, and people from the survey and design through site selection to production and installation of the trash trapper so that they are not only the partners but also the owners and operators of the tool.

It’s a good thing too. The Song Hong gets its name from the vast quantities of rust-colored silt that flow through its waters to the sea. However, that is not all the river transports. Large quantities of trash end up in the river too, prompting MCD’s pioneering efforts to develop locally designed and built trash traps.

We celebrated the successful deployment of our first trap for the Clean Currents Coalition project in January, with a ceremony that included national and local officials. MCD did a lot of work to bring the community together around the launch. It turned out to be the last time such a gathering would be possible for quite a while: Just a few hours after the event, the region announced a new pandemic lockdown.

Participants gather on stage to celebrate the launch ceremony for the trash trap on the Red River, Vietnam
Launch ceremony for the trash trap (Credit: MCD)

Like the rest of the world, Vietnam has since struggled to contain new COVID variants. The Hanoi region recently emerged from its strictest lockdown yet, during which time most residents could not leave their homes without a signed permit (and then only twice a week to procure food). To everyone’s relief, these measures appear to have tamped down the virus and the country is once again slowly returning to normalcy.

Fortunately, unlike humans, trash traps do not sleep. Our trap continued to capture trash throughout the worst of pandemic, as well as weathering storm season in the Red River delta. In all, it has collected a total of 1,500kg of trash since its installation (58% of which is plastic).  And this is just the beginning. We are excited to move forward with our additional traps, with the ambition to install our second trap in the spring of 2022.

Learn more about Ocean Conservancy and their work:

Learn more about MCD and their work:

Cleaning the Arteries of Vietnam

Rivers are the lifeblood of Vietnam. A dense network of more than 2,000 rivers flows throughout the country, supporting agriculture, fisheries, and serving as a means of transportation for communities living along them. Just as these rivers bring life and livelihoods to the communities dotting their shores, they also carry massive amounts of plastic debris to the ocean. This plastic waste impacts both the rich marine life at a river’s mouth as well as the health of the communities that live and depend on it.

Take, for example, the Song Hong (Red River), which winds through northern Vietnam, passing through two major urban areas: Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital city, and Nam Dinh at its mouth. The river opens into the Gulf of Tonkin and is teeming with life. Here, Xuan Thuy National Park is home to 14 species of mangroves, 116 species of water and shorebirds, 111 aquatic plant species, and over 500 other species of marine life, including shrimp, fish, crab, and oysters. In fact, Xuan Thuy was the first UNESCO Ramsar site (a distinction given to wetlands of international importance) to be designated in Southeast Asia in the 1980s for its value as a migratory bird habitat.

But if you walk around and on the tidal flats of Xuan Thuy National Park today, it’s hard to pick out shells from the bits of plastic. Splashes of color in the mangroves are more likely to be plastic bags than birds. The tidal flats and mangroves are dotted with the bright blues, reds, oranges, and yellows of bags, bottles, and other plastic waste from neighboring communities and that washes up from the ocean.

Trash along the Red River Delta (photo credit: Rachel Giles)

We’ve seen from our research that plastic waste is likely impacting the health of this vital estuary, so we began exploring ways to stop the plastic before it got there.

In 2019, members of our team from the Centre for Marinelife Conservation and Development (MCD) began working with the USAID Municipal Waste Recycling Program (MWRP) to engineer a solution to this problem: a low-cost, locally developed trash trap to catch waste coming down the river. Building on that successful prototype, MCD and Ocean Conservancy launched a new effort this year to construct a network of five river capture devices, and communications and educational activities to develop a community-wide solution to protect the valuable riverine and marine environments along the Red River. Our innovative trash trapper uses low-cost materials and is locally sourced and constructed, showcasing how innovation, combined with community-centered solutions, can help reduce plastic waste pollution in our waterways.  

Trash Trapper (photo credit: MCD)

In addition to organic waste like duckweed, much of the waste collected in the trash trapper is plastic: bags, Styrofoam, and bottles. High-value plastics like bottles are sold to other recycling facilities; low value plastics like bags are sorted and processed by a special facility in Nam Dinh, Moi truong xanh (Green Environment) Nam Truc Ltd. The bags are sorted by workers and then washed, melted, spun and cut into small recycled plastic beads. These beads are then sold to other recycling plants as raw materials for new products.

Recycling process (Photo credit: MCD)

Manually sorting plastic and  Solid waste sorting system
The recycling machinery, where plastic bags are melted after being washed
Melted plastics are then spun into noodle-like tubes.   Finally, they’re cut into recycled plastic beads.

After more than eight months of operation, the area around the trap has become noticeably cleaner, and locals have seen less littering in the area. This is partly because of the public awareness events that MCD has organized in Nam Dinh, such as the annual International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) where volunteers gather yearly to clean up the area. During a community dialogue event, local authorities at all levels came to praise the trash trapper project for its effectiveness and positive impact on the life of the community. They see the project lending a hand to speed up the implementation of waste management and environmental protection plans. And although the project has just begun and has not yet reached full scale, local officials hope to see this concept spread in years to come throughout Nam Dinh province, increasing local community knowledge and participation to support efforts to improve waste management overall. This project will support the Nam Dinh People’s Committee’s recently enacted policy to create campaigns and regulations to stop the use of single-use plastics in its markets. This was developed in response to the release of Vietnam’s National Action Plan for Marine Plastic Waste Management in December 2019, which identifies rivers as a high impact opportunity to reduce ocean plastics.  

Local officials and community members are taking notes; (Photo credit: MCD)

As of this December, we hope to have two trash traps in the water. We envision a future where the water in the river can finally flow freely with less plastic, leaving a cleaner and healthier river for all the communities that depend on it. We are excited to support the Nam Dinh Community in cleaning one of Vietnam’s major arteries!

Want to see the trash trapper in action in Nam Dinh? Check out MCD’s video: The Journey of Waste

To learn more about Ocean Conservancy and their projects, check them out:

To learn more about MCD and their projects, check them out:

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Tackling River Plastic Waste: Introducing the Clean Currents Coalition

Oil Spill
The blowout of Union Oil’s Platform A released 3 million gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean, coating 800 sq. miles of ocean and killing thousands of seabirds, marine mammals, and fish. It is the third largest oil spill in the history of the United States, behind only the BP Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez spills. (Photo: Santa Barbara Maritime Museum/Dick Smith Collection)

On January 28, 1969, catastrophe struck. When an offshore oil platform off the California coast experienced a blow-out, over 3 million gallons of crude oil gushed into the Pacific Ocean. But while a black tide smothered the coastline, a green tide rose in the small California seaside town of Santa Barbara and quickly spread across the globe. In 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated. Today it is the largest secular observance in the world, engaging over 1 billion people in 192 countries.

Fifty years later, the penchant for sparking global action remains strong in Santa Barbara. The Benioff Ocean Initiative, based at the University of California Santa Barbara, channels that spirit of global action to tackle the most pressing issues facing our ocean. Only now the focus has shifted to a new environmental problem: plastics.

The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) campus, home to the Benioff Ocean Initiative at the Marine Science Institute. (Photo: Marine Science Institute, UCSB).

Plastics are remarkable materials. They are strong, durable, flexible, and easy to produce. From their use in cars and electronics to food packaging and healthcare, plastics are ubiquitous in modern life. Since 1950, over 7.8 billion tons of new plastics have been produced – the equivalent of 1 ton for every person currently living on Earth.

Of those 7.8 billion tons, only 9% have ever been recycled.

Some have been incinerated (12%), but the vast majority remain overflowing in landfills and accumulating in the environment. And once they are in the environment, the ultimate fate of many plastics is the ocean. Every year, up to 12 million tons of plastics enter the ocean. It is predicted that by 2050 there will be more plastics in the ocean by weight than fish.

While some plastics — like fishing gear — enter the ocean directly, most are transported from land, much of which is via rivers. Up to 275 tons of plastics enter the ocean from rivers every hour.

Because of this, rivers offer a unique opportunity to fight the plastics crisis. In the ocean, plastics are carried to hard-to-reach places like the open ocean, down the water column, and to the sea floor. Rivers, on the other hand, are accessible, relatively shallow, and act as point sources of plastics. To turn off the tap of plastics entering the ocean, rivers are a great place to start.

Theoretical design of a river plastic capture device. Floating booms guide plastic waste to collection points.

With this knowledge, the Benioff Ocean Initiative and The Coca-Cola Foundation have partnered to create and support a global network of innovative, mission-driven problem solvers: the Clean Currents Coalition.

Consisting of 9 teams in 9 different countries, the Clean Currents Coalition is combating the flow of plastic waste from rivers to the ocean. The interdisciplinary teams of the Clean Currents Coalition are developing new and innovative technologies to capture plastic waste in highly-polluted rivers and to repurpose and recycle the collected materials.

But the intervention doesn’t stop there. While there are many noble plastics clean up efforts underway around the world, the Clean Currents Coalition is taking it one step further. Through extensive data collection and pioneering the use of new technologies like artificial intelligence, we are compiling a standardized, global dataset of plastic waste in the environment to better inform scientific research and management strategies. The teams are also working closely with their local communities to create real change surrounding policy, infrastructure, and behavior related to plastic waste. Our goal is that one day, thanks to the Clean Currents Coalition, there will no longer be plastic waste in our rivers to remove.

Mapping the rivers illustration
The Clean Currents Coalition consists of 9 teams working in 9 countries: Ecuador (Portoviejo River), India (Assi River), Indonesia (Citarum River), Jamaica (Kingston Harbor), Kenya (Nairobi & Athi Rivers), Mexico (Tijuana River), Panama (Matías Hernández River), Thailand (Lat Phrao Canal), and Vietnam (Song Hong River).

Today, each Clean Currents Coalition team is working in one community on one river system. But together, through collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and a common goal, our ambition is to use what we learn and help replicate these successes to more and more river communities around the world. We are taking the lead on global action to fight a global problem.

Join us on the journey of the Clean Currents Coalition. Follow us on this blog as we share the unique stories of these rivers and their communities as they work towards cleaner currents.