“I taught them how to do that,” Le Trung Tin says proudly, tossing another handful of fish feed. As he winds his way along narrow paths on Son Island, Le Trung Tin explains how plastic pollution forced him to shift from fishing in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta to fish farming in filtered ponds.
“I built this ecological environment free of plastic waste, chemical spills and (protected from) extreme weather,” he says, noting a reduction in fish deaths and increased profits compared with his previous fishing ventures in plastic-choked waters. “Living in harmony with nature is essential for fish farming, but it’s becoming harder in the delta.”
Flowing more than 4,300 kilometers from the Tibetan Plateau in China, through mainland Southeast Asia and then into Vietnam’s Mekong Delta before finally emptying into the South China Sea, the Mekong River is among the top 10 waterways in Asia most responsible for riverine plastic waste reaching the world’s oceans.
The proposed United Nations-led Global Plastic Treaty debated in South Korea earlier this month was hoped to offer some relief. But disagreements over plastic production and chemical use left the supposed landmark treaty far from consensus. Now, world leaders are planning a sixth, and again supposedly final, negotiations conference next year.