1Plastic everywhere! In the trees, streets, fields and rivers of the Ho Chi Minh City region in Vietnam. The situation is so troubling that, when they arrived on site in 2015, a team hitherto specialising in environmental contamination by metals decided to refocus their research and dedicate themselves to plastic pollution: visible macroscopic plastic but also degraded, invisible plastic of less than 5 millimetres which combines with water or dust.

Floating waste, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

2Researchers found that, while plastics are the subject of research and monitoring activities in the countries of the Global North and in the ocean environment, this was not at all the case in Global South countries, where water and waste treatment systems are most lacking.

Microplastics being sorted in a laboratory, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

3In conjunction with teams working in France, they examined the water of the Saigon river in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City. The protocols designed for a river such as the Seine soon proved to be inadequate given the local concentrations of microplastics: the setting time of nets used to collect plastic contaminants was reduced from 30 minutes to one minute to prevent saturation problems. The results showed that the concentration of macroplastics in the water of the Saigon river was 700 times higher than that of a river running through a megalopolis in a developed country; and the concentration of microplastics was 1,000 times higher. One litre of drinking water can therefore contain more than 100 plastic fibres, with unknown effects on the environment and health. These fibres are also found in the atmosphere and can therefore end up in the lungs of the populations.

4To cope with this emergency, in 2018 an exhibition in French, English and Vietnamese was organised by scientists to raise public awareness of the plastic issue in Vietnam. This hard-hitting approach stimulated discussions and may have contributed to raising awareness.