INTEGRATING MARINE PLASTIC WASTE TOPIC INTO UNIVERSITY PROGRAMS – VASI & WWF

Marine plastic pollution is one of the major challenges in environmental protection. The huge amount of plastic waste discharged into the ocean each year not only pollutes the environment and ecosystems but also negatively affects economic development and the daily life of coastal communities; and harbors the potential risk of food insecurity.

With the goal of raising awareness and changing behaviors in a sustainable way, the project “Reducing Marine Plastic Waste in Vietnam” jointly implemented by the Vietnam Administration of Seas and Islands (VASI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature Vietnam (WWF-Vietnam) identifies education and training as an area that needs special attention. On the one hand, students are among the users of plastic products and often produce quite a large amount of plastic waste. On the other hand, this targeted group has a high level of awareness and ability to influence to change the behaviors of other groups of people. More importantly, students with the right awareness of environmental and plastic waste issues have the potential to directly impact policies and legislation in this field when they later join the workforce and become future managers.

Accordingly, the Ocean Plastic Waste Management Module for the Undergraduate Project was developed and completed in the first half of 2022. Research and survey activities have been carried out within the framework of this project to evaluate and determine the feasibility of teaching the Ocean Plastic Waste Management Module to undergraduate students and build a pilot model to integrate the topic of marine plastic waste management into education programs at universities. The positive results achieved have encouraged the parties to implement the next phase, which is the project “Integrating the topic of Marine Plastic Waste Management into some modules being taught at Vietnam National University, Hanoi”.

The activities of the project will contribute to reducing plastic waste pollution and support the implementation of the National Action Plan on ocean plastic waste management in Vietnam by 2030.

Objective: Develop content on ocean plastic waste management and integrate them into the education programs at a number of universities, the first being Vietnam National University, Hanoi.