My master thesis is about the single-use plastic waste management. Its main concern is to improve the single-use plastic waste management in Vietnam. Vietnam is one of the major gateways of mismanaged plastic waste to the ocean, and one of the biggest importers of plastic waste since 2017. Meanwhile, Japan is the world 2nd biggest plastic waste exporter, and is the biggest to Vietnam. It is obvious that the weak plastic waste management system in Vietnam lead to serious plastic waste problems in the environment. Nevertheless, it is equally essential to emphasize that part of plastic waste in Vietnam came from Japan. Thus, my thesis looks into both countries’ problems, and emphasizes the need to make big systemic changes in both in order to overcome the plastic waste crisis. It proposes a combination of circular economy and EPR, a stop to the waste trade, and more attention to waste prevention and waste minimization to tackle the crisis.

In the future research, I would love to look more into the relationship between political system, economic system and the environment. I am particularly interested in the systems we had in human history, and how different systems had affect the environment. I believe the answer to the current problems we are facing might appear somewhere in human history. What we need to do is to take a look back. That way we can realize where it went wrong and why.

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Research interests: Politics and Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Activism, Sustainability, Production and Consumption, Socio-economic System, Consumerism, Circular Economy.

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