Losing My Mind Over Littering

As I've mentioned before, the litter here appalls me. It is everywhere – on the streets, piled next to the road, in trees and bushes, surrounding houses, but worst of all, it covers the beaches like a matted multicolour quilt. It forms a plastic maze across the ocean's surface, strangles corals, and litters the seafloor.

Let's be fair here - in Canada, littering was commonplace until the 1970's when fines were imposed (it is still an issue – consider the raging war on cigarette butts). I grew up being taught not to be a litterbug - I got so passionate about it that I made posters, and worse, threw rocks at people I saw littering (I did the same thing with smokers ... Perhaps the old English in me still craved a good stoning). In a developing country such as Vietnam, it is hardly fair for me to get frustrated by littering when many people can't access clean drinking water, don’t finish high school, or barely have roads. But it seems like complete laziness when there are waste management options, yet people still throw their garbage directly into the ocean. It stems from a mentality that everything is decomposable, which, until the heavenly arrival of plastics, it was.

Just your average multi-colour shoreline.

A few weeks ago, I participated in a series of Reef Check dives with the Marine Protected Area staff. I was horrified by the amount of garbage at some of the dive sites – how could we be evaluating the health of the coral but ignoring the waves of plastic that floated by?? I pacified myself by collecting garbage in a net bag I found attached to a hard coral.

Underwater trick-or-treating for garbage

After one particularly dull seagrass dive, I surfaced and joined the rest of the MPA team on shore after a mucky, slurpy, disgusting 400m walk through the shallows (the number one thing that gives me the heebie-jeebies is walking through soft, deep, murky, muddy lake or ocean bottom… I can’t stand it). Upon reaching shore, I dumped my heavy dive gear next to everyone else's and sat down to wait for our ride. Miraculously, an ice cream motorbike rode by (not joking, this is a thing, it even plays music) and all of these grown men eagerly purchased a treat. They unwrapped strawberry bars and chocolate cones, anticipation on their faces… then without a thought they dropped the wrappers on the ground. My face clearly conveyed my anger, disgust and frustration because my research assistant, Thanh, kicked his plastic to the side, slightly abashed.

How could these men, who are educated, who are aware of ocean issues, who devote their work to marine conservation, just drop this garbage on the ground directly next to the ocean?! I looked on angrily, but felt it would be too ridiculous and rude to pick up what they’d just dropped on the ground (or maybe I was just too exhausted … either way, I regret not giving them a piece of my mind).

I always pick up whatever garbage I find when I’m scuba diving (batteries, bags, you name it). But on land, the issue is so overwhelming that it feels pointless to pick anything up. I’ve been searching for NGOs or other groups devoted to the issue of littering in Vietnam (which I’m sure is a widespread issue throughout most developing countries) but I haven’t managed to find much yet.

Dealing with littering will just have to continue as a side-project to my seahorse work…