About plastic waste

A local sorts works in a plastic waste landfill in northern province of Lao Cai.

Delegates presented work between the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), the Delegation of the European Union to Việt Nam and Expertise France on policy development as well as recommendations for four pilot projects in HCM City, Hà Nội and Phú Yên Province, which aim to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up untreated on land and in the oceans.

The initiatives included enhancing plastic packaging collection, sorting and recycling, encouraging fishermen to collect plastic waste caught while fishing, establishing an alliance of supermarkets to reduce the use of single-use plastic bags, and managing waste in ports.

“The Vietnamese Government and the MONRE have shown strong political commitments affirming that we have always given high priority to finding both short and long-term solutions to reduce plastic pollution and foster economic development,” said Director-General of the International Cooperation Department of the MONRE Phạm Phú Bình.

“The circular economy solution to marine plastic litter can be an important contribution to support the implementation of the National Action Plan and helps Việt Nam achieve its goals. Experience and lessons learned from the project and pilot activities will serve as a basis to expand to other localities and aim to inform policy development initiatives,” he said.

The circular economy means markets that give incentives to reusing products, rather than scrapping them and in such an economy, all forms of waste are returned to the economy or used more efficiently, according to the United Nations definition.

Talking about the circular economy, Rui Ludovino, First Counsellor, Climate Action, Environment, Employment and Social Policies at the Delegation of the European Union to Việt Nam, said: “We must move towards a circular economy for plastics, an economy in which resources are used and managed more efficiently and more sustainably. Through the Rethinking Plastics project, we work closely with Việt Nam to prevent marine plastic litter and share regional and European experiences,” he said.

The four pilot activities complement these efforts towards a circular economy with concrete actions and experiences from the local level, involving communities and households, local businesses and administrations, he added.

These activities are run within the ‘Rethinking Plastics – Circular Economy Solutions to Maritime Litter’ initiative,  which is implemented by Expertise France with the financial support of the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Việt Nam has been confirmed as the world’s fourth-largest marine plastic polluter after China, Indonesia and the Philippines. Each year, the country dumps an estimate of 300,000-700,000 tonnes of plastic waste into the ocean per year, accounting for 6 per cent of the world’s marine plastics.

The country has set the target to have zero disposable plastic waste by 2025.

It has adopted a development strategy to promote the maritime economy in parallel with protecting maritime environment and ecosystems, specifying “preventing, controlling and significantly mitigating marine environmental pollution; being a regional pioneer in reducing ocean plastic waste” among the country’s objectives for 2030. — VNS

By Hoang Bac – Translated by Anh Quan

The preliminary assessment round of the Press Awards officially began in Hanoi on April 8.

The jury council for the preliminary judgment consisted of 69 members who were divided into groups of prizes with 11 categories.

The entries must highlight the country’s achievements and discover outstanding examples who have made great contributions to national renewal and development; as well as feature the difficulties and limitations of social life and the spirit of fighting against corruption and waste.

The winners are expected to be announced at an awards ceremony on the occasion of Vietnam’s Revolutionary Press Day (June 21).

This was the message in a speech given by Mr. Hung at a youth event of the Viettel Group, when he was still Viettel’s General Director. VietNamNet would like to introduce the speech:

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung.

Today, we are immersed in the atmosphere of Viettel youth, which is an atmosphere of creativity, daring to commit, being unafraid of difficulties, and full of aspirations.

Each of us has only one life to live on and each life has only one passage called youth. Youth is also the time when people have the most opportunities to try their best. Youth in general and Viettel’s young people in particular have in hand the most valuable asset which is time. And many young people in Viettel do not let time pass by meaninglessly. They are brave to engage in things that even they do not think they can do.

Today’s world has changed a lot. The power and the way people use their powers have also been changing day by day and hour by hour. Artificial intelligence, Internet of things, social networks … can make us stronger but can also engulf us at any moment. In the age of Internet, we can easily connect with millions of people but we are losing connection with ourselves, living without purpose, living under popular trends, not knowing what is valuable to us, not knowing what is our true strength. Today’s young generation has a lot of strength but also faces many challenges. That means your generation has a lot of things to do.

Our generation gave birth to Viettel, but the day when we leave Viettel will come. The responsibility today is all with you, with the younger generation Viettel. The wisdom of your generation is the wisdom of Viettel. No one else but you are the future of Viettel, a new Viettel born by you. The future of Viettel depends largely on the younger generation of Viettel today. So I want to talk a little bit about your responsibility.

That responsibility begins with always thinking differently, being more creative, out of old patterns, not dwelling in the experiences that have created today’s success. It is often said that youth is impotent, because youth is the age when one is not shy at all, always doubts everything – except his own ability. But immaturity is a special kind of energy unique to young people. Experienced people are actually living in a box with 6 panels. The bottom panel is all the data they have, the top panel is their belief, the front is what they’ve ever seen, the experience creates the behind panel, the left is all they suppose, and the right panel is all of their knowledge.

All the good people, the experienced people, the older people live in those 6 partitions. The better they are, the harder the partitions can become. The more years there are, the more difficult to break the partitions. But young people don’t have those partitions, they don’t live in that six-sided box. Without a box, without any barriers to hinder you, you will see the universe. When a young person makes an effort towards a goal, it is the strongest, most beautiful posture. In the world, nothing more beautiful can be found than the arduous struggle of youth. Because of that, smart people always wish they could be younger.

That responsibility is also to always have a sense of learning. It is not only about learning specialized knowledge, and not stopping at cultivating foreign language skills in order to be able to integrate into the world. It also doesn’t stop at the fact that we have to forge the habit of reading to absorb new human knowledge. It also means that you have to constantly try, be determined and patient to overcome difficulties.

You will not avoid difficult things or hesitate to try things you have never done, and you will constantly commit to discovering yourself. Today we can work in the engineering industry, tomorrow we can try business. Today we can work at home, tomorrow we go out to foreign markets. Today we have experiences in the field of telecommunications, tomorrow we will immerse ourselves in the field of manufacturing research. New experience is never redundant. Discover new passions, learn new skills, use precious adolescence to prepare yourself and hone the skills needed to pursue a career that you aspire to. And that is why, when we are young, we need to try a lot and rise a lot to explore our very different abilities. Today’s world is a world that offers opportunities for those who are multidisciplinary, multi-knowledgeable and multi-skilled.

That responsibility also means that you stay engaged, take risks and not be afraid of hard work. Do not be disappointed if you are not immediately good at something. For all of us, no one can be good at everything right away. Take each failure as a necessary lesson for success. Only by making commitment and be brave can you do great things in your life.

The menu or the diners? It is the name of a book about the history of Singapore. Deciding to be a dish for the world’s powers to determine your own destiny or to become an equal with them, discussing important issues with them. They have the right to choose. And they chose themselves as diners, and after only 25 years separated from Malaysia, Singapore, from an island nation, became a prosperous country. This question should also be posed by young people. Do we decide whether we will become victims or the cause of all of our problems? Because if we are the victim, we will just cry, but if we understand that we are the cause, we will find a solution to fix it. Do we decide to be employees or do we become an employer? As employees, we will work under the direction of others. As an employer, we know what we want and what we need to do.

Yesterday, I had a talk with Truong Thanh Thuy – who is known as Vietnam’s startup queen – who has stage 4 lung cancer. One year ago, Thuy was full of energy with many plans and ambitions. Thuy and Viettel have coordinated to bring the Hour of code program to Vietnam, so that Vietnamese people can understand that programming is not difficult, that programming language will make our life smarter and more convenient. At the same time, cancer fell on Thuy’s life. Yesterday, I met Thuy. She was thinner, bluer, and her facial skin was ravaged by drugs aimed at controlling painful tumors that are metastasizing to her bones. But her energy is still intact. Thuy said that since the day she has been living with cancer, her life has been more meaningful.

Thuy founded a non-profit organization to help cancer patients in Vietnam. Thuy is striving to create a cancer faculty at an university. Thuy is building software to support the lives of cancer patients. Thuy did not let adversity knock her down. Thuy did not turn herself into a victim of cancer. On the contrary, Thuy considers cancer a second chance of life. And Thuy has found the meaning of her life and the value that she can bring. What could be happier than living your life and seeing yourself worthwhile? And that just needs a little change in your mind, so don’t turn yourself in to a victim to anyone, of anything but yourself. Always be the employer in all your work. Take control of your own life. Don’t entrust it to anyone, but yourself.

To tell this story, I want to tell Viettel young people that adversity is a wonderful thing this life gives us. And as the General Director of the Group, I am working hard to create challenges for Viettel’s youth. Challenges, great goals, and divine aspirations are also adversities for us to explore our abilities.

We can completely see these things from the OCS project, the project to research and manufacture telecommunications network infrastructure, the project to protect customers in cyberspace. We, the young people of Viettel, did it. To reach success, many times you have to face failure and deadlock. But it is the strength of Viettel youth that I mentioned above, that is creativity, daring to venture, not being afraid of difficulties and always being full of aspirations that make impossible projects, at least for Vietnamese people, become a reality.

I love the fable about the butterfly very much. Before becoming a butterfly, a silk moth needs to be strong enough to break out of its cramped cocoon. Someone, because he wanted to help the silk moth, uses his hands to split the cocoon. As a result, he has a handicapped butterfly because its wings are so weak. It turns out that the cocoon is stiff for a reason – it creates an environment for the young butterfly to constantly move, constantly strive so that its wings are sturdy and large enough to be able to fly in the sky when it escapes from the cocoon.

At Viettel, we have determination, aspiration and we even consider it a responsibility to young people to ensure that the silk moth be born healthy. We create challenges, we set high goals, we are picky about our products so that each person can grow up faster, manifest his abilities more clearly. Because I myself and the group leaders always believe that 90% of capacity in each person is still sleeping, which needs something to wake it up. Like the silk moth, without a cocoon thick enough, its wings will not be stiff enough. If the cocoon is not a harsh environment, the silk moth will forever stay in the peaceful nest and never dare to leave. Therefore, Viettel is always proud of having created a harsh enough environment for anyone passing through this organization; when looking back, they will see that they are much more mature. Viettel is contributing to allowing people the opportunity to find their own capabilities, find the purpose of their life.

Because everyone has youth at some point. Therefore, when we have health, have time, have passion, have recklessness, do not let time pass by meaninglessly. Because anything can be regained, but youth cannot be regained. The most valuable asset of youth is time. The greatest fear of youth is wasting time without learning anything valuable. Let’s be brave, be engaged, go ahead, do what you never thought you could do. The magic of youth is not being able to do everything, but always hoping to make everything. The property and money that we have can be lost. Human reputation can also dissipate in an instant. Friends and relatives have to leave us sometimes. Only wisdom will be never lost. It will follow us all our life. It will even last forever if one day we are not in this world anymore.

If you want to change something, tighten the laces and move on. If you’re frustrated with what you have currently, take action now. Express yourself, stick to your goals. You can win sometimes, but sometimes you have to lose. But always remember that what’s worthwhile never comes easy. And failure is also a kind of experience. More than that, it is a good experience. Because it is failure that helps us to be stronger and more mature. A rich youth is a youth with many experiences.

Young people are energetic, have a lot of aspirations, are not afraid of failure, so let’s take difficult jobs, challenges, go ahead, get involved, fight evil, create startups, raise new ideas, give birth to your own baby and if you fall, you can get up. Viettel has dreams, divine aspirations, and the mission of Viettel’s youth is to give birth to a new Viettel, your Viettel, to fulfill those dreams and aspirations.

Nguyen Manh Hung