Our mission is to clean-up a river from plastic waste by tackling the problem at its roots: better waste management at household level and recycling activities. These activities will be done in a financially viable way by empowering social business entrepreneurs and hence generating income opportunities for marginalized people.
Mekong River Clean-up
Vietnam
Our Mission
Our StoryPlastic waste has been identified as a major environmental issue during the last few years. According to estimations approx. 8 million tons of plastic wastes are entering the ocean every year. A major share of this amount is originating in the countries of Southeast Asia and rivers are an important source of marine litter, because they transport waste dumped into rivers or released from dumpsites by flooding. The Mekong River belongs to the 10 most important river sources of marine litter. Improving the financial sustainability of waste management systems and introducing systems of waste prevention, collection, sorting and recycling is key to improve the situation.
Our FutureWithin Long An, the district of Than Hoa has been selected as a first site for the model project. This district has an area of 468 km² and 55.000 inhabitants, most of them (49.500) are living in the rural area. To reduce the input of marine litter a key aspect of the planned model project is the reduction of the waste amount going to landfill and incineration. We will set up a social business for waste collection and recycling providing an income for local people. Once the model project will be successful we will be able to scale the activities along the Mekong river to other districts in Vietnam and eventually replicate it in other countries.
Explore this Project
Contact details for interested individuals and parties:
Christina Jäger,
The Grameen Creative Lab,