Reuse Campaign "Bring me to a new home instead"

According to statistics, Viet Nam is claimed to rank fourth in causing marine plastic pollution in the world. Vietnam Zero Waste Alliance’s audit report shows that each individual uses up to approximately 500 plastic bags a year on average. Since the 1990s, the amount of plastic consumed per person has rapidly increased with the rate of more than 10%, and even 40% in some years. Particularly, in 1990, a Vietnamese individual used 3,8kg of plastic, whereas, in 2019, this figure rose up to 63kg, higher than the average consumption level in the world (46kg/person/year). Viet Nam’s plastic waste accounts for 16% of the total quantity of municipal waste, twice as much as the average plastic waste of developing countries. With such alarming statistics, researchers and people are interested in the reuse industry. Reuse is the activity of reusing products, or part of products for the original purpose or other purposes and using a product multiple times until the product lifetime ends. As we can see, reuse involves pure reuse (reuse) and reuse of the packaging (reuse-refill). They both aim at increasing the lifetime of the product/packaging and reducing the number of materials required to be exploited, as well as minimizing negative effects on the environment.

Circular economy, officially used by Pearce and Turner (1990), is a term describing a modern economical model based on the basic principle “everything is input for others”. The circular economy is demotically understood as a purposeful and by design restoration or regeneration industrial system. The circular economy is regulated in Viet Nam’s Law on Environmental Protection in 2020 and Decree No. 08/2022/NĐ-CP according to which, the 3 criteria of circular economy are (i) lowering exploitation of resources and raw materials, (ii) lengthening the lifetime of products and (iii) restricting negative impacts on the environment. Consequently, reuse plays an important role in the circular economy.

With the aspiration to raise community’s awareness in values and roles of reusing and circular economy in environmental protection, and reduce the amount of waste annually, Vietnam Zero Waste Alliance (VZWA), in cooperation with Institute of Strategy, Policy on Natural Resources and Environment (ISPONRE), Vietcycle, Centre for Supporting Green Development Greenhub, Environmental Development Action in the Third World (ENDA), RMIT University (Ho Chi Minh City breach institute ); Refill-Đây, Đong Đầy Hội An – Hoian Refillable, The Crafty Cow and various other partners organize the Reuse Campaign 2022 with the theme “Bring me to a new home instead”.

1. Objectives:

Raising community awareness about preventing and reducing solid waste via promoting reusing.
Connecting and facilitating the process of giving and receiving, where the culture of civilized giving-taking is dignified and developed.
Creating opportunities to practice collective activities, and community cohesion.

2. Duration: Phase I starts from June to December 2022

3. Location: Phase I focuses on connecting organizations/individuals who wish to give receive in Ha Noi, Da Nang-Hoi An, and HCM City.

4. Activities:

**Launching: The campaign is launched on June 1, according to that, donors, and receivers will be matched through sharing registration links (available on VZWA and partners’ communication channels):

Register for giving away used items: https://forms.gle/SVgUN9waZ3t86Nzm7
Register for receiving used items: https://forms.gle/jpDGHhb3VYDjhPrQ6
Volunteer application: https://forms.gle/uf1syLaYfQpcAVdd6

With the number of 5 volunteers per city, volunteers will be responsible for supporting individuals/organizations that wish to give/receive through explanations and shipping (if needed).

***Benefits:

Being provided with training about circular economy and values of reusing in the circular economy;
Practicing in group and networking activities;
Connecting values to protect the environment;
Being issued with Certificate of Attendance;
Fee for traveling and communication: 500.000 VND/month/volunteer

***Requirements:

Being independent, active, and having an interest in the environment
Having own means of transportation
Being willing to learn

***Responsibilities:

Supporting contact between donors and receivers
Supporting deliveries (if needed)
Supporting providing information and responding to questions

***Connecting donors and receiver

VZWA will collaborate with partners and volunteers to connect and ensure the maximum benefits of the giving-receiving process. The criteria:

Priority is given to receivers with minimum travel distances.
Priority is given to freshmen, workers, and disadvantaged people.
Priority is given to those who can meet the deadlines and other requests from givers.

5. Contact points:

For more information, please contact: