Tài liệu Awareness and willingness to reduce single use plastic in hanoi in relation to climate change mitigation

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI DANG HUE AWARENESS AND WILLINGNESS TO REDUCE SINGLE-USE PLASTIC IN HANOI IN RELATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION MASTER’S THESIS VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI DANG HUE AWARENESS AND WILLINGNESS TO REDUCE SINGLE-USE PLASTIC IN HANOI IN RELATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION MAJOR: CLIMATE CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT CODE: 8900201.02QTD RESEARCH SUPERVISOR: Dr. TAKEUCHI RYO ASSOC.PROF. TAMURA MAKOTO Hanoi, 2020 PLEDGE I declare that this master thesis has conducted by the author. This result has not submitted to any papers and hasn’t published yet. The references and citations from research paper, book, report, websites were in the list of references of the thesis. Author of the thesis Nguyen Thi Dang Hue i TABLE OF CONTENT PLEDGE............................................................................................................. i TABLE OF CONTENT .................................................................................... ii LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................... iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGMENT ................................................................................. vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1 1.1 Research background .............................................................................. 1 1.2. Motivation .............................................................................................. 3 1.3. Purpose of the study ............................................................................... 4 1.4. Scope ...................................................................................................... 4 1.5. Research questions ................................................................................. 5 1.6. Hypothesis .............................................................................................. 5 1.7. Structure of the thesis ............................................................................. 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................... 7 2.1. Single – use plastic ................................................................................. 7 2.1.1. Plastic bags ...................................................................................... 9 2.1.2. Plastic takeaway food containers ................................................... 12 2.2. Plastic issue and climate change .......................................................... 13 2.2.1. Heat emissions from crude oil making .......................................... 13 2.2.2. Greenhouse gases emission from plastic waste treatment............. 14 2.2.3. Greenhouse gases emission from plastic ....................................... 16 2.2.4. Impact on the oceanic carbon sink ................................................ 17 2.3. Waste management in Vietnam............................................................ 19 2.4. Mitigating plastic related greenhouse gas emissions ........................... 21 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .................................................................. 25 3.1. Research process .................................................................................. 25 3.2. Sampling and data collection ............................................................... 25 3.3. Questionnaire design ............................................................................ 26 3.4. Statistic method .................................................................................... 26 3.5. Expert method ...................................................................................... 27 3.6. Study site .............................................................................................. 27 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS ................................................................................ 29 4.1. Background information....................................................................... 29 4.2. Consumption behavior ......................................................................... 30 ii 4.3. Environmental impacts awareness ....................................................... 39 4.4. Willingness to reduce ........................................................................... 42 4.4.1. Single – use plastic container ........................................................ 42 4.4.2. Single – use plastic bag ................................................................. 47 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION .......................................................................... 52 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ...................... 58 6.1. Conclusion and recommendation ......................................................... 58 6.2. Limitation ............................................................................................. 60 REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 62 APPENDIX ..................................................................................................... 67 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Disposal of all plastic waste generated in 2015 ............................. 7 Figure 2.2: Single- use plastic bags life cycle................................................. 11 Figure 2.3: Plankton processes ........................................................................ 18 Figure 2.4: Waste collection process .............................................................. 20 Figure 2.5: Net greenhouse gas emissions from source reduction and municipal solid waste management option ..................................................... 22 Figure 3.1: Research process proposed by the author..................................... 25 Figure 4.1: Gender and aged of respondent .................................................... 29 Figure 4.2: Education level ............................................................................. 30 Figure 4.3: Number of single - use plastic container per week in general ..... 30 Figure 4.4: Number of single - use plastic container used base on gender per week................................................................................................................. 31 Figure 4.5: The number of containers use base on ages ................................. 32 Figure 4.6: Reusable container usage ............................................................. 32 Figure 4.7: The reasons for bring reusable container ..................................... 33 Figure 4.8: The reason for not bring reusable container ................................. 34 Figure 4.9: Number of plastic bags used per week ......................................... 35 Figure 4.10: Plastic bags usage base on gender .............................................. 36 Figure 4.11: Plastic bag used after carrying .................................................... 36 Figure 4.12: Reusable bags usage status ......................................................... 37 Figure 4.13: The reason for not bringing reusable bags ................................. 38 Figure 4.14: Environmental impact awareness ............................................... 39 Figure 4.15: Environmental impact awareness with detail ............................. 39 Figure 4.16: Important of the environmental issue (on a scale from 1 to 5) .. 40 Figure 4.17: Sources of information ............................................................... 41 Figure 4.18: Shopping priority ........................................................................ 42 Figure 4.19: Willingness to reduce single – use plastic container .................. 43 Figure 4.20: Willingness to reduce single – use plastic container based on gender .............................................................................................................. 44 Figure 4.21: Willingness to reduce plastic container based on age ................ 44 Figure 4.22: Willingness to cooperate by paying for single - use eco-friendly container .......................................................................................................... 45 Figure 4.23: Education level and willingness to cooperate by paying for single–use eco-friendly container ................................................................... 46 iv Figure 4.24: Willingness to reduce the usage of single – use plastic bag in general ............................................................................................................. 47 Figure 4.25: Willingness to reduce the usage of single – use plastic bag based on gender ......................................................................................................... 47 Figure 4.26: Willingness to reduce the usage of single – use plastic bag based on ages ............................................................................................................. 48 Figure 4.27: Willingness to cooperate to stop taking plastic bag at the shopping places ............................................................................................... 49 Figure 4.28: Education and willingness to cooperate by how people accept to stop taking plastic bag at the shopping places ................................................ 49 Figure 4.29: The acceptance of strategies to reduce plastic bags ................... 50 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CO2 CO2e EPS GAIA GHG HDPE IPCC LDPE LLPE Mt MONRE kWh PE PET PLA PS PVC WRAP ATSDR Carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide equivalent Expanded polystyrene Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives Greenhouse gas High-Density Polyethylene Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change Low-Density Polyethylene Linear Low-Density Polyethylene Metric ton Ministry of National Resources and Environment kilowatt - hour Polypropylene Polypropylene terephthalate Polylactic acid Polystyrene Polyvinyl chloride Waste and Resource Action Program Agency for Toxic Substainces and Disease Registry vi ACKNOWLEDGMENT I’m grateful to our faculty lectures of the Master in Climate Change and Development Program, Vietnam Japan University, who has given me many guidance to process my project. I’m very thankful to my supervisors - Dr. Ryo Takeuchi and Assoc.Prof. Makoto Tamura, who provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research and always encourages me, and to Bui Thi Hoa – MCCD program assistant for helping me during doing survey, and to my classmates Tieu Thi Diu, who was patient to help me while I was processing the data. I want to express my appreciation to the lectures, staffs in Ibaraki University and friend especially Suziki Shunya for supporting me so much during the internship. I would like to show my appreciation to all of friends who helps me to share my survey, and to everyone who spend time to review and give the comments. Finally, I would like to express our gratitude to all the people who help me by providing their valuable assistance and time for this study. Nguyen Thi Dang Hue vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research background Increasing plastic waste poses threat to globally sustainable development as they are destroying ocean ecosystem and sustain in the environment for hundreds of years. Plastic production is one of the industrial production activities causing serious pollution to the air environment (Center for International Environmental Law, 2019). The amount of harmful emissions with extremely unpleasant odors seriously affects the health of those exposed. In the process of burning plastic will produce toxic substances, including 3 toxic gases: CO2, SO2 and vinyl chloride. In the long term, they also affect the atmosphere, creating a greenhouse effect. The plastic production in global scale has been increasing rapidly since past 50 years. When comparing the global production of 1950, which respectively accounts for 2 million tones, annual production has increased nearly 200-fold, reaching 381 million tones by 2015 (Plastic global production, 2018). While the impacts of plastic waste causing to the environment, the ecosystem, especially the marine ecosystem have been clearly shown, the effects of plastic on climate change are gradually being clarified (Center for International Environmental Law, 2019). The plastic production is highly dependent on fossil coal, a non-renewable resource. In 2019, the burning and production of plastic contributed 850 million metric tons of GHG to the atmosphere. This is equivalent to emissions from 189 megawatt coal fired power plant. By 2030, this amount of emissions could reach 1.34 gigatons per year if plastic production and use grow under the current plan. This is equivalent to emissions from more than 295 new 500 MW coal fired power plants. By 1 2050, the accumulation of these GHGs emissions from plastics can exceed 56 gigatons per year, accounting for 10-13% of the remaining carbon budget, the plastics industry can account for 20% of the world's total oil consumption. The increase of GHGs emission from plastic sector will threat the ability of global communities to limit the total global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius and making efforts to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October 2018 highlighted in an IPCC special report on the impact of global warming of 1.5 degree Celsius. In particular, plastic product packaging (plastic bags, plastic bottles, product packaging) accounts for about 36%. Plastic construction materials, household appliances and other types of industries such as electronics, electricity, and transportation account for 16%, 36% and 12% respectively (United Nation Environmental Programme, 2018). In 2015, plastic packaging waste accounted for 47% of the world's plastic waste, half of which seemed to come from Asia. Vietnam, China, Indonesia and Philippines are among top 20 countries produce the highest amount of plastic waste to ocean. Vietnam is ranked as the fourth country that discharge plastic waste into the ocean with 1.83 million metric tons per years, after China in the first place with 8,82 million metric tons, Indonesia in the second place with 3.22 million tons, Philippines in the third place with 1.88 million metric tons (Jambeck et al., 2015). According to the National Environment Report in 2015, solid waste is mainly treated by dumping or incineration. The main sources of waste are Hanoi city, Hai Phong city and Ho Chi Minh city. With the proportion of products in the total volume of plastic products produced annually, plastic packaging in 2 Vietnam has an average output of about 1 million tons/year. According to previous data, the average consumption of plastic is about 25 – 35kg plastic/person/year. Up to now, with the growth rate of plastic industry of about 15 – 20%/year, at the same time the economic life is growing, the average plastic consumption reaches more than 40kg/person/year. Along with future economic and population development, the amount of plastic waste will also increase rapidly, while land fund for landfill is shrinking, outdated waste treatment technology, create a heavy burden on the environment and human health. In addition to the single - use plastic waste treatment measures such as applying modern treatment technology, sorting waste from sources, taxes and prohibited laws, reducing the use of single - use plastic from consumers is a solution in the context of a developing country like Vietnam. Therefore, it is necessary to raise people’s awareness on environmental impact of plastic waste and understand level of willingness to reduce the use of single-use plastic. The study will present the current situation of single – use plastic consumption in Hanoi. And the results will be valued as the base for policy makers to issue regulation or to organize media campaign to reduce single – use plastic waste. 1.2. Motivation Given the fact that plastic pollution becomes urgent all over the world in general and in Vietnam in particular, there is a lack of study on Vietnamese people’s awareness on single – use plastic consumption. In the context of the Government of Vietnam efforts to eliminate disposable plastic year by 2025 and prevent the amount of waste spilled into the ocean by the Prime Minister's decision to promulgate a national action plan on ocean 3 plastic waste management by 2030. On 9th June, 2019, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc stated Vietnam has aimed to stop selling single – use plastic at supermarket by 2021. Hanoi City President Nguyen Duc Chung also said Hanoi will make efforts to December 2020 to ban plastic bags in all shopping centers. As impacted by global movement on anti-plastic waste, Vietnamese government has organized media campaign to raise people’s awareness on plastic waste harmfulness. 1.3. Purpose of the study The aim of the research is to provide the information relate to Hanoi population’s attitudes towards the consumption of single-use plastic bags by showing their level of willingness to reduce. This research also identified the Hanoi population’s awareness of human health impact and environmental impacts caused by single –use plastic. Base on the results, some recommendations will be given. This result may be used by any organizations such as Government authorities, non-profit organization, or individuals in order to create the strategies and take actions based on the actual attitudes. 1.4. Scope The study is aimed at people from 18 years old and older living in Hanoi. By creating an online questionnaire using Google forms, both closed and open; and face to face survey. The questionnaire will be sent to respondents via Facebook social networks. The link to the questionnaire will be posted on the researcher's Facebook and ask everyone in the friends list to share it with others, to increase the diversity of respondents. 4 1.5. Research questions 1. What is Hanoi people’s perception towards the consumption of singleuse plastic and their willingness to reduce the consumption? 2. Whether is the willingness of single-use plastic bag consumption differentiated in gender? 1.6. Hypothesis 1. People use plastic bags for convenience, also having basic knowledge about the harmful effects of plastic waste. 2. Women and younger people have higher level of willingness to reduce single – use plastic. 1.7. Structure of the thesis Six chapters were designed in this thesis, as presented as below:  Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter briefly introduces about the background of research, research objective, research questions and scope.  Chapter 2: Literature review This part provides the fundamental information about single – use plastic, the relationship between plastic and climate change and reducing plastic related climate change mitigation.  Chapter 3: Research Methodology The process of the research, sample size and data collection, the data analysis method are described. 5  Chapter 4: Results presentation and finding This chapter presents the data collected and show the results after analysis from Excel and Chi- square.  Chapter 5: Discussion The research question will be answered in this part, adding more information to explain and the result from expert interview. The discussion about reducing plastic and climate change mitigation.  Chapter 6: Conclusion and recommendation Summary the main issue from data analysis and discussion, giving some suggestions, also limitations and further research direction. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Single – use plastic According to United Nations Environment, single-use plastics, or disposable plastics, are used only once before they are thrown away or recycled. Single – use plastic is made of plastic which is lightweight, sanitary, frustrate material. These items are things like plastic bags, straws, coffee stirrers, soda water bottles, containers, cups, cutlery and most food packaging. In 2015, the waste of plastic packing occupied for 47% of the global plastic waste generated, Asian a lone contributed half of the total. 9% 12% 79% recycled Incinerated Landfill and dumping Figure 2.1: Disposal of all plastic waste generated in 2015 (Roland Geyer et al., 2017) Once no longer in use, a product or package may be recycled, incinerated, buried, dumped in an uncontrolled location, or disposed of into the environment. Because of the percentage of recycling is just 9 %, 12 %, so the most of the plastic waste was solve by landfills or dumping into the environment (Roland Geyer et al., 2017). 7 Plastic cannot be biodegraded. It will take hundreds of years for them to split up into small pieces that known as micro-plastics. Especially, the productions made of expanded polystyrene foam might need thousands of years to decompose. If plastic waste leaks into the environment, it will cause problems. Plastic bags can block waterways and worsen natural disasters by clogging sewers. Plastic bags and bottles also provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes and pests, which can increase diarrhea and infectious diseases. Polystyrene foam products, containing carcinogenic chemicals like styrene and benzene, are highly toxic when ingested and can damage the nervous system, lungs and reproductive organs. The toxins in the foam can seep into food and drinks. In poor countries, plastic waste is often burned by heat and cooking, and people are exposed to toxic gases. Burning and disposing of plastic waste in an outdoor pit releases toxic gases such as furan and Dioxin. (United Nation Environmental Programme, 2018). The application of plastic for single – use production is various. LDPE is material for plastic bags, trays, food packing film and containers. Water bottles and other drinks, biscuit trays, dispensing boxes for cleaning fluids are made of PET. Milk bottles, bags for freezers, soap bottles, ice cream containers are made of HDPE. PS can be used to make cutlery, plates and cups. EPS is applied to produce hot drinks cups, insulated food packing, fragile items with protective packing. There are some familiar products like microwave dishes, ice cream tubs, potato chip bags, bottle caps are made of PP. 8 2.1.1. Plastic bags According to Oxford dictionaries in 2017, plastic bags are given freely at places of sale for customers to contain and carry goods. Plastics are obtained by ethylene polymerization. The characteristic of plastic bag is thin, light, tough, waterproof and cheap compared to other materials. Grocery stores are generally the largest single-use consumer markets (Wagner, 2017). When it first came out, plastic bags were considered an alternative to paper bags at the time to reduce deforestation and timber in the 1960s. When at that time, paper bags were the common way to carry and carry things (Petru, 2014). When it was first launched in the US in the 1970s, plastic bags were not quickly accepted by consumers at the time. Manufacturers of plastic bags have resorted to media campaigns to try to change consumer attitudes in actively accepting plastic bags. It was not until 1977 that American supermarkets began to provide plastic bags to consumers when shopping. Europe began to supply them consistently in the 1980s. In the 1990s, developing countries began to popularize plastic bags. Today, plastic bags become popular worldwide with between 500 billion and 1.5 trillion plastic bags used for shopping each year (Jennifer Clapp et al., 2009). Single-use plastic bags are widely used because they are tough, cheap and hygienic to transport goods. Plastic grocery bags consume less energy and water to produce and produce less solid waste than paper bags, taking up less space in landfills. The advantages of plastic bags have helped them to be widely consumed and become globally popular. However, they are also difficult to recycle and adversely affect the environment, especially when we lack in management (United Nation Environmental Programme, 2018). 9 According to zero waste Europe, there are three basic types of normal plastic bags and 1 type of degradable plastic bags. In particularly, High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) bags are used for making unbranded bags and is often used in markets, service stations and grocery stores. HDPE bags are produced from ethylene and are by-products of gas or oil purification. In the US, these types of bags used in grocery stores and supermarkets usually have a thickness from 0.7 to 1.75 mils, including the handle straps. The fact that these types of bags have handles to distinguish them from bags used only to wrap foods such as vegetables, meat, fish at each counter to bring to the cashier. Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) bags are branded printed bags and are used at places that sell higher value goods at shopping malls or stores. These types of bag usually have a thickness range from 2.25 to 3 mils in general. LDPE is also a side product of gas or oil filtration and is also made from ethylene (Wagner, 2017). Non-woven Polypropylene is the type of plastic used to make reusable bags. In recent years, biodegradable plastic bags are also a product of public attention to replace conventional plastic bags. These types of bags have the ability to decompose through the action of bacteria, algae, fungi. Synthetic or biological polyesters such as potatoes, corn, sugar are material to make biodegradable bags (ICF, 2010). However, biodegradable bags cost more than plastic bag; therefore, the manufacturers and retailers are not interested in promoting the use of bio-bags (MESTECC, 2018). The recycling rate of plastic bags is quite low. There is no exact statistics on the number of plastic bags once recovered and reused. According to a report by the US Environmental Protection Agency, 2015 plastic bag recovery rate was 12.3%, down 1.2% compared to 2013 (US EPA, 2015). Normally, if plastic bags are collected and recycled, they will have to be sorted at source to 10 avoid mixing with other types of recycling, affecting quality. However, the cost for sorting is high and the recycling value of plastic bags is very low. Therefore, plastic bags are considered as disposable products. The recycling of plastic bags is mainly based on individual people, which can be used more than once, such as storage of household items, garbage, and containers when taken out (WRAP, 2015). Nevertheless, even when plastic bags can be reused, it depends on the consumer's personal awareness and it is important that they still become garbage in landfills, in incinerators or thrown out into the environment. From a study of ICF International in California in 2010 about Master Environmental Assessment on Single – Use and Reusable bags, the life cycle of the single – use plastic can be displayed in figure 3 below. Figure 2.2: Single- use plastic bags life cycle (ICF International, 2010) 11