Single-use Plastics: Legal Perceptions and Self-Reported Behavior in Vietnam

Plastic pollution has become a serious global threat to ecosystems, human health, and economies, particularly in countries with coastlines such as Vietnam. The 3R approach (reduce, reuse, recycle) has been recognized as an important strategy to minimize plastic waste and reduce the risk of plastic entering the ocean. However, changing single-use plastic consumption habits is a great challenge that requires awareness, education and action. This study uses mixed methods, including a survey and semi-structured interviews, to explore: 1) Single-use plastic consumption and 3R behaviors of Vietnamese people; 2) How they perceive the current environmental regulation enforcement; and 3) How they perceive the role of stakeholders in the plastic problem. A self-nominated sample of 202 participants residing in Hoi An City, Ha Noi Capital and Ho Chi Minh City responded to the survey, and in-depth interviews were conducted with ten key informants (including workers from the public and private institutions, citizens and researchers). The results suggest that the convenience, affordability, availability and durability of plastics are the drivers of consumption, while legal bans, health and environmental concerns are motivators of reduction. For 3R behaviors, the participants reported the highest level of recycling, followed by reducing and reusing, acknowledging the help of Vietnamese traditional habits such as selling “ve chai” (recyclables) and using “cặp lồng” (inox food containers) for their 3R behaviors. Finally, the participants observed that penalties for plastic littering are low and too leniently enforced, especially for businesses. They also believed that stakeholders, including businesses, governments, and consumers are the main actors in tackling the single-use plastic waste problem. This study provides some recommendations based on these findings.


INTRODUCTION
Marine plastic waste is one of the most alarming environmental problems, not only in Vietnam but also around Asia and the world.It affects the marine ecosystem and contaminates the food chains of both human and animals [1].One of the most significant sources of marine plastic waste is single-use plastics such as plastic straws, food and drinks containers, as well as wraps and bags, which are used only once and then discarded [2].Single-use plastic waste contributes to the accumulation of nonbiodegradable waste at landfills if conventional disposal methods (i.e.waste handling by standard procedure) are followed.Alternatively, if they are discarded improperly, either through intentional lettering or being carried away by wind due to their lightweight nature, the wastes will end up in rivers and oceans and start its polluting effect [3,4].
A report conducted by the United Nations Environment Program in 2018 showed that only 9% of 9 billion tons of global plastic products are recycled at the end of its lifecycle.This implies that more than 8 billion tons of plastics will either end up in landfills or the environment [5].What is more, since the outbreaks of the Covid-19 pandemic during 2019-2022, the consumption of single-use plastics has increased dramatically, mostly due to health measures such as face masks, gloves, goggles, full-body gowns and quick test kits that are disposed after one use [6].A study conducted in India by Gunasekaran et al. reported that face masks were the most frequent plastic waste among others, accounting for up to 98% of the total waste [7].Similarly, another study conducted in Thailand highlighted the increased plastic waste resulting from the consumption of delivered and takeaway food and beverages due to social distancing and home quarantine measures.The review by Shams et al. in 2021 estimated that the worldwide short-term and long-term impacts of plastic waste on the environment will be significantly exacerbated due to the pandemic, specifically because of its consequences in increasing marine plastic pollution, greenhouse gas emission from decomposed plastic waste in dumpsites, as well as micro-and nano-plastics in water sources [9].Thus, policymakers are urged to revise and implement appropriate regulations and policies on plastic products.Furthermore, it is crucial to educate the public on the importance of adopting 3R behaviors (reduce, reuse, recycle) as a means of mitigating the plastic waste issue.[9] According to the report of the National State of Environment conducted by the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment [10], the total volume of solid waste generated nationwide in Vietnam was approximately 44,400 tons per day in 2010 and increased by 46% to approximately 64,658 tons per day in 2019.It is estimated that around 8% to 13% of the total solid waste in Vietnam is plastic [10].The percentage of plastic waste also increased in remote areas of Vietnam in the past 20 years due to industrialization, urbanization, and tourism growth [10].Plastic bags, foam food containers and plastic straws are among the most common single-use plastic waste disposed into the ocean, and single-use plastic wastes account for more than half of the total plastic waste identified at riverbanks (72%) and coastal sites (52%) in Vietnam [11].With this high rate of plastic waste and poor waste management, Vietnam ranked 4th in the top five countries with the highest percentage of mismanaged plastic waste by mass in 2010 [12].
As an effort to reduce plastic waste, the Vietnamese government has issued several policies to decrease plastic waste while promoting 3R behavior.At the national level, the Law on Environmental Protection 2020 was approved by the National Assembly of Vietnam.The law introduced new provisions aiming at reducing, reusing, recycling, and treating plastic waste.In addition, it aims to restrict the use of single-use plastic products and non-biodegradable plastic bags, while promoting the production of eco-friendly alternatives.Additionally, various legal documents have been issued to support these efforts, including the Prime Minister's Directive 33/CT-TTg ( 2020 687/QD-BNN-TCTS (2021).According to Vietnam Prime Minister's Decision No. 1746/QD-TTg (2019), the overall goal for Vietnam is to reduce 75% of the total amount of plastic waste entering the ocean by 2030.Notably, Hoi An City (Quang Nam province) is one of the pioneers in the strict enforcement of laws related to single-use plastic waste.In 2019, Hoi An's local authority released Directive 15-CT/TU to minimize the amount of single-use plastics, non-biodegradable plastic bags, in both residential and tourist areas, which was followed by Action Program No. 613 dated 9 th March 2020 and Plan 801 dated 7 th April 2021.Since 2019 the strengthening of law enforcement has been supported by the two prominent campaigns "Say No to Plastic Bags" and "Say No to Plastic Straws" started in 2018.These campaigns involve various stakeholders including authorities, citizens, businesses, and tourists who are expected to engage in 3R activities with legal penalties applied if they fail to do so.
Scientific studies investigating how Vietnamese people perceive legal enforcement and stakeholders of plastic waste are limited.Currently, most information on this topic is reported by local newspapers, such as Tuoi Tre News [13] and Vietnam News [14].While the implementation of legal decisions often follows a top-down approach, it is also crucial to explore the qualitative perceptions of Vietnamese consumers to inform bottom-up law enforcement strategies.This approach is important as a binding enforcement policy and penalty system are critical for driving behavior change in single-use plastic consumption [15,16].Additionally, there is also some evidence suggesting that restrictive legislation may prevent progressive actions towards the reduction of plastics in lower-income areas [17].Therefore, this exploratory study aims to report, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the perception and behavior of Vietnamese people in three different cities.The study specifically focuses on single-use plastic products only, including plastic bottles, plastic cutleries, plastic straws, plastic bags and wraps, and does not investigate behavior related to plastic toys, furniture, clothes, or other products that are not single-use.As such, self-reported 3R behavior and consumption of single-use plastics will be investigated, as well as the perceptions of law enforcement and responsibility of stakeholders in regards to single-use plastic waste disposal.

METHODS
A mixed-method approach was used to gather quantitative and qualitative data.For quantitative data, a survey was distributed online to a self-selected sample living in Hoi An City, Ho Chi Minh City, and Ha Noi Capital, from January to March 2023.Subsequently, in-depth interviews with ten key informants were conducted to discuss personal opinions about the current management of plastic waste in Vietnam.

Survey participants:
A total of 202 people responded to the survey.The majority of respondents were from Hoi An City (74.2%) and were females (72%).Around half of them held a bachelor's degree (49%).Most of them (61.4%) had a monthly income below 10,000,000VND/month (~$430USD/month) and had an office job (43.4%).More details about sample characteristics are shown in Table 1.

Quantitative measurements:
The survey was an 11-item questionnaire that assessed self-reported level of plastic consumption behavior, 3R behavior, perception of law leniency and enforcement, and perception of other stakeholders.The participants answered the survey first and then were asked to report their demographic information, including age, gender, monthly income level, educational level, occupation and residing location.

Self-reported single-use plastic consumption:
There were two items assessing the frequency of consuming single-use plastic cutleries and take-away products that contain plastic packaging, plastic bottles, and plastic bags.Responses were recorded on a Likert scale from 0 (Very rarely) to 4 (Very frequently).A higher score indicated a higher level of consumption of single-use plastic products.
2.2.2.Self-reported 3R behavior: Three questions were asked.Each question required the participants to rate their reduction, reuse, and recycling behavior of plastic products.The same Likert scale was adopted (0 -Very rarely to 4 -Very frequently).A higher score indicated more 3R behavior for plastic products.

Perception of law leniency and enforcement:
To measure this, the current fines for violating plastic waste regulations imposed by the Vietnamese government for individuals and businesses were explained.Then, participants were asked to rate how much they agreed that the current fines for plastic waste violations were too lenient.There was one question asking about the fines for individuals (consumers), one question asking about the fines for businesses, and one question asking about the fines for plastic littering from the general public.Responses were rated on a Likert scale from 0 (Strongly disagree) to 4 (Strongly agree).A higher score indicates that the current legal fines were seen as too lenient.

Perception about other stakeholders:
Participants were asked three questions to assess their perception of the responsibility that other stakeholders should bear in addressing plastic pollution.These stakeholders included other individuals (citizens) who are responsible for selfeducation about plastic waste, businesses who are responsible for reducing plastic packaging, and local authorities or policymakers who are responsible for providing improved plastic waste collection.Participants rated their agreement with each statement on a Likert scale ranging from 0 (Strongly disagree) to 4 (Strongly agree).A higher score indicated a higher perception of responsibility for the respective stakeholder.
For all survey questions, blank spaces were provided after each question for participants to write their comments and suggestions to clarify their ratings with the prompt "Please elaborate your answer if possible".These comments were also used for qualitative data analysis.

Qualitative procedure:
The initial list of participants was established based on the researchers' networks.Both purposive and snowball sampling methods were used to collect data.We reached out to find people with a variety of backgrounds, such as government officers, academic researchers, and people working for non-profit organizations having higher education qualifications in environmental and waste areas; workers having hands-on experience in collecting and treating wastes for more than 5 years; and citizens who needed not have expertise in the field but were eager to share their thoughts and concerns.We also aimed to include participants coming from different cities in Vietnam, including Hoi An, Da Nang, Ha Noi, and Ho Chi Minh city.Ten participants who agreed to be interviewed included government officers, academic researchers, directors and workers of waste enterprises/public service companies, waste collectors, and a citizen (Table 2).Our sample had a 6:4 ratio of male to female participants.All participants were informed that they would be interviewed about their personal perspectives regarding plastic waste management practices in their local areas, and all of them gave consent to be audio recorded.One-on-one in-depth interviews were conducted via telephone or video conferencing (Zoom) at the participants' convenience and lasted around one hour on average.The interviewing process occurred over a period of two months, starting in January 2023 and completing in March 2023.Semi-structured interviewing technique was used, centering around nine pre-determined questions as this technique allowed flexibility for free-flowing conversations between the participants and the researchers while still ensuring that key questions would be answered [7].The nine key questions are presented in Table 2.

Plan of data analysis:
Descriptive data for each quantitative item were reported individually, with their qualitative elaboration analyzed in themes.For the data collected from in-depth interviews, recordings were transcribed using the Jefferson system.NVivo software (11 th version) [8] was used to code responses and identified key themes and patterns.

Plastic products consumption
Overall, most participants reported a low frequency of consumption of single-use plastic cutlery and takeaways with plastic bags, with 43.6% reporting very rare use of single-use plastic products, and 28.7% reported very rare use of takeaway plastics (Figure 1).The mean level of consumption for single-use plastic cutlery was 2.07 (SD = 1.16) and for take-away was 2.49 (SD = 1.27).
Participants indicated that convenience, availability, affordability and durability are the most appealing characteristics of plastics, making it hard to resist purchasing and consuming them.Additionally, single-use and takeaway plastic products require little effort to clean and prepare (i.e.food and drinks).The interviewees stressed that the habit of using single-use and takeaway plastic products has been increasing since the outbreaks of Covid-19.Because of mobility restrictions, people had to stay at home and order food online (A1, A2, A3, A4, and A8).One common idea was that "Take-away food is convenient for people who work in the office because food is easily ordered from online menus while no clean-up activities are required" (A8).This indicates the characteristics of the throwaway culture of consumerism, and plastics have still been the best material that can meet the needs for a convenient, available, affordable and durable option.
On the other hand, the three most commonly indicated reasons for avoiding plastic products were legal restrictions, concerns for health and concerns for the environment (Table 4).Regarding legal restrictions, the interviewees stressed that the overall regulations and policies on single-use plastic products are very crucial and significantly contribute to plastic reduction (A4, A5, A9, and A10).Specifically, A10 -an office worker at the government-regulated management board of Cham Islands' protected area -also pointed out that the recent strictly imposed regulations from Hoi An City's authorities have made a very positive impact on the behavior and awareness of Hoi An citizens, with numerous campaigns were conducted continuously to remind and motivate people to reduce plastic consumption and reserve their own living environment.Qualitative elaboration from the survey also indicated that most survey respondents residing in Hoi An City were well aware of the environmental campaigns conducted in the city and mentioned it at least once, while respondents from other places such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi Capital did not mention such campaigns being run at their local areas.While statistical inferences cannot be made from our study about the effectiveness of the environmental campaigns and the regulation enforcement of Hoi An City compared with other places in Vietnam, qualitative data suggest that residents will positively accept such campaigns and regulations if they are conducted continuously, strictly and widely.
Regarding health concerns, one interviewee (A8) and several survey respondents acknowledged that plastic containers have detrimental effects on health if they are used to contain food.Some interviewees also acknowledged that people, in general, are now more aware of the negative impacts of plastic products on the environment, making them more hesitant to consume plastic products (A6, A8, A9, A10).However, having these concerns did not mean that they would certainly avoid plastic consumption, as "no other options are available that can totally replace plastics".This indicates that even if plastic-related health and environmental concerns are raised and acknowledged, the participants still consume plastic products at the cost of their health and the environment.This tradeoff for plastic consumption has been accepted and endured for a long time.

Table 4.
Reasons for single-use plastic product consumption and avoidance.

Reasons for consumption
Reasons for avoidance

Plastic-related 3R behavior of Vietnamese people
One-way repeated measures ANOVA indicated that the frequencies of reducing, reusing and recycling behavior significantly differed, F(2, 402) = 13.8, p < .001.Survey respondents reported more recycling behavior (M = 3.99, SD = 1.06), followed by reducing behavior (M = 3.83, SD = 0.93) and reusing behavior (M = 3.58, SD = 1.12).Differences in the mean score of each 3R behavior are illustrated in Figure 2, and the frequency distribution of 3R behavior is illustrated in Figure 3.For recycling behavior, the participants acknowledged the beneficial practice of collecting "ve chai", where one collector will go around residential areas announcing and heralding that they will "buy" recyclable products such as plastic and glass bottles, cans, and carton boxes.Because recyclable waste is collected right at home in return for some small amount of money, people have formed an active habit of separating and sorting these recyclable products, thus "significantly contributing to reduce plastic waste thrown at the landfills or the environment" (A4, A5, A7, A8, A9, A10).According to one key informant, there was a team of about 94 collectors and 7 owners of scrap collection facilities in Hoi An City who worked daily to collect and pre-process recyclable waste (A10).While this practice is still continued in metropolitan cities such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi Capital, it is becoming less common due to the fast development of condominiums where "ve chai" collectors cannot get easy access to each household, as compared to separate, individual houses.The mention of "ve chai" also appeared less in the qualitative data from citizens residing in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi Capital.On the other hand, people are increasingly educated about the recycling process of plastics, and some of the survey respondents brought up the question of its effectiveness and safety, as this process can release the harmful chemicals from plastic products.This indicates that the local authorities might need to reinforce and maintain this traditional practice of "ve chai" collection as people find it very helpful, thanks to its convenience, frequency and availability, thus promoting recycling behavior.However, the local authorities also need to have clear, informative, and consistent communication with their people regarding what they do with the plastic recycling process if they want to increase their trust and engagement in sorting and recycling plastic waste.
Similarly, for reusing behavior, some participants reported that they do not prefer to reuse plastic products because the plastics are already secondary, degraded and might release harmful micro-plastic particles.Another commonly reported reason was that they rarely bought products of single-use plastics in the first place and opt for alternative materials such as glass or wood if they intend to use the product for a long time.
For the consumption and purchase of takeaway cooked food, respondents from less developed areas further revealed the use of "cặp lồng" or "cà mèn", a Vietnamese traditional food container that is made of inox.This practice helps them reduce single-use plastic containers and packaging for takeaway food.However, in metropolitan cities where food delivery services are rapidly expanding, this traditional practice is becoming less common as food delivery offers a more convenient option as it eliminates the need for customers to travel to buy food.
Overall, these findings suggest that the Vietnamese local authorities might want to preserve the traditional practices that are environmentally friendly such as collecting recyclable "ve chai" at the household level or promote the use of personal food containers "cặp lồng" for takeaway food.At the same time, proper communication and education to the public are needed to increase their trust and engagement in 3R behavior.

How do people perceive Vietnam's current legal penalties for plastic-related violations?
While the enforcement of legal regulations was identified as a crucial factor in reducing plastic consumption as mentioned in section 3.1, the participants in the study perceived that the current legal penalties for both individuals and businesses who violated plastic waste treatment were too lenient.However, respondents concurred more on the matter of imposing stricter sanctions on the businesses, rather than on individuals, who breach waste treatment protocols (Figure 4).The main reason for considering the penalties for businesses to be too "lenient" was their significant consumption of plastic for product packaging (Table 5).In contrast, survey respondents and interviewees indicated that consumers usually lack understanding and proper training on plastic waste treatment.Thus, they believed they should not be penalized as strictly and instead should be educated by the authorities first.Given that the majority of the sample consisted of consumers rather than business owners, it is understandable that the most responses predominantly suggested that the penalties for businesses should be enforced more strictly than for individual consumers.
Table 5. Opinions regarding the current fines for plastic-related violations.

For individuals For businesses
In general 1.Consumers should not be penalized when plastic products are approved to be sold in the market.
1. Industries should pay more fines because they consume plastic (and are more likely to violate it) the most.
1. Authorities should provide proper equipment and collection procedure for plastic waste before imposing penalties.

Authorities should provide
proper training on what to do with plastic waste for residents 2. Being unaware of the current fines (how much and for which behavior).

How do Vietnamese people perceive the role of stakeholders in tackling plastic waste?
The majority of participants agreed that other stakeholders including businesses, authorities and other consumers, should all be held accountable when dealing with plastic waste.Key informants working as public servants stressed that businesses and enterprises should take the first action to reduce plastic packaging and opt for more environmentally friendly materials (A4, A5).On the other hand, waste collectors (A2, A3) suggested that the authorities are responsible for improving the public garbage collection system.For example, waste should not be contained in black or other colored plastic bags so that the content inside can be easily seen and increase processing time.Waste containers also need to have caps (or covers) to avoid winds blowing away lightweight plastic products, as many uncapped garbage containers are still being used in Vietnam.There are also opinions that consumers need to be better educated about the impact of plastics to shift away from the use of single-use plastic products and opt for more sustainable products (A9, A10).These results suggest that not only the consumers but also the manufacturers and the authorities should be held responsible for the plastic waste problem, each in different ways.Figure 5 illustrates the distribution of the ratings for perceived stakeholders' roles.Overall, these results highlight the multifaceted nature of the single-use plastic waste problem and the need for collective responsibility and action from businesses, authorities, and consumers to tackle it effectively.

DISCUSSION
This study utilized a mixed method to explore how much a self-selected sample of Vietnamese people consume, reduce, reuse and recycle single-use, takeaway plastic products.Additionally, the study qualitatively explored participant's opinions on the current legal penalties for inappropriate plastic waste disposal, and the level of responsibility stakeholders should bear in addressing the plastic waste problem.
Firstly, we found that convenience, affordability, availability and durability are reported as drivers of single-use plastics consumption, while legal bans, health concerns and environmental concerns are reported as motivators of reduction.For 3R behaviors, the participants reported the highest level of recycling, followed by reducing and reusing while acknowledging the help of Vietnamese traditional practices such as selling "ve chai" (recyclables) and using "cặp lồng" (inox food containers) for their 3R behaviors.It is evident that the adoption of traditional, sustainable lifestyles results in reduced plastic waste generation, as evidenced by practices like shopping in stores and consuming food on-site instead of relying on takeaways or deliveries.Bringing one's own bamboo, water-hyacinth, or seagrass grocery bags ("giỏ đi chợ") further contributes to the reduction of plastic bag usage.As urbanization and a throwaway consumer culture continue to prevail, products are increasingly designed for single-use, leading to more environmental waste.Therefore, preserving and promoting these traditional practices can serve as effective strategies for mitigating plastic pollution in Vietnam.These insights can be valuable for Vietnamese leaders and policymakers to address the plastic waste issue.We believe that promoting and incentivizing traditional practices and behaviors that align with the 3R approach could lead to a reduction in plastic consumption and waste generation.
Additionally, the study emphasizes the importance of public education and awareness campaigns to promote responsible plastic waste management among citizens.By understanding the motivations and barriers to 3R behaviors, targeted interventions and policy measures can be developed to encourage more sustainable practices and reduce plastic pollution in Vietnam.
Secondly, findings from this study highlight the importance of law enforcement regarding the inappropriate disposal of plastic waste.Most respondents from the survey indicated that they are unaware of or uneducated about how much the penalties are for such behavior.However, when presented with the current penalties information of Vietnam, the people agree that local authorities have been enforcing the penalties too leniently and lightly for the general public, especially for businesses.The most common justification for this perception is that businesses decide what to sell and how to design the packaging of their products.In light of these findings we emphasize the necessity for strict enforcement of the new environmental law 2020 which focuses on waste classification and 3R behavior should be strictly enforced by the government.
To compare with what has been reported in other Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, in 2021, Van and colleagues found that Malaysian's laws and regulations did not predict the intention to reduce the consumption of single-use plastics of its randomly-sampled 341 respondents from the town of Parit Raja [4].While the authors reported that "the majority of respondents disagree that existing laws and regulations are able to reduce usage of single-use plastic" (p.275).However, their study did not employ a qualitative approach to explore the reasons behind these perceptions such as whether the authorities' enforcement was perceived as too soft or too strict, leading to a lack of influence on the intention to reduce single-use plastic, which contributes significantly to plastic waste pollution.In our study, how Vietnamese people perceive Vietnam's law enforcement regarding plastic littering violations is explored in-depth, and the findings serve to inform the authorities that clear messages and strict enforcement of penalties are needed to make people aware of the legal and financial consequences of plastic littering.While raising awareness of the negative effects of plastics on the environment as an effort to reduce single-use plastics has been found to be ineffective in reducing actual behavior [4,18,19], here we have found scientific evidence to support the idea that raising awareness of the legal and financial consequences of plastic waste littering might be better, besides building stronger regulatory measures and enforcement mechanisms.This idea, nonetheless, has been raised previously by experts in Vietnam, such as lawyer Dinh Anh Tuyet in an interview with Vietnam News, who highlighted that "the fastest and most effective way to weaken bad habits and behaviors of people is to have strong laws with punishment that can serve as a deterrent" [14].Using the example of how the Vietnamese government changed the habit of not wearing helmets of motorbike riders by imposing strict financial penalties, the lawyer believes that the same strategy must be adopted in regard to the problem of plastic littering.The first step to implement this strategy is to raise awareness and to inform people of the legal consequences they would face, and subsequently conduct strict law enforcement.The problem with law enforcement in Vietnam does not only lie in the amount of fines but also lies in the consistency and persistence of the actions.Such actions also need time for the public to adjust to them.For instance, Malaysia started to implement a single-use plastic (e.g.plastic straws) ban policy in several cities such as Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, and Selangor in 2019 and reported negative public reactions since its beginning [20].
Participants in our study also indicated that they were unaware of alternative, environmentally friendly products to replace plastics, which could result in negative reactions to ban policies if implemented without proper education and options for alternatives.Thus, we suggest that banning actions for single-use plastics should always be accompanied by comprehensive education.Public awareness campaigns should inform about the availability and benefits of using alternative materials such as glass, inox, canvas, wood, bamboo and other environmentally friendly substitutes.Examples could include inox straws or drinking without straws, using banana leaf wraps, bringing canvas fabric shopping bags and your own cups or "cặp lồng" to purchase food and drinks.Learning from the successful campaign "Say No to Plastic Bags" strictly conducted at Cham Islands, Hoi An City in 2009, indicated that awareness and behavior of Hoi An residents have significantly changed [21] and this has promoted their next campaign "Say No to Plastic Straws" [13].Apart from establishing inspection teams to strictly monitor violations, leaders of the campaign can also provide practical solutions to make the transition to alternatives more convenient to the public.For instance, canvas fabric bags can be distributed to residents to replace plastic bags when they go shopping, or new ideas for how to use newspapers or banana leaves to wrap groceries can be frequently spread and updated via TV educational programs.
Finally, our study indicates that participants perceive various stakeholders, including businesses, governments, and consumers, as the main actors in reducing marine plastic waste.This highlights the need for multi-stakeholder engagement and collaborative efforts to address the issue comprehensively.The involvement of non-governmental organizations, businesses, researchers, and international organizations, as evident from the interviews conducted, also emphasizes the importance of collective action and partnerships in addressing the single-use plastic problem.
Several limitations of our findings should be noted.Firstly, due to a self-selected sample, respondents of our quantitative survey might be more interested in plastic-related issues and have more concerns for the plastic waste problem than the general population.Consequently, this could lead to an overrepresentation of positive plastic-related behavior and practices, such as lower levels of single-use and takeaway plastic product consumption and higher levels of 3R behavior.Since the study did not involve random sampling, the generalization of the findings to the broader population is limited.
Secondly, the reliance on subjective ratings through self-reporting may be subject to social desirability bias.Respondents might report what they believe is expected of them or what is socially desirable, rather than providing accurate accounts of their actual behavior.This bias could impact the reliability and validity of the reported data, particularly when it comes to behaviors that may be considered socially undesirable, such as high levels of single-use plastic consumption.

CONCLUSION
Using a cross-sectional survey combined with in-depth interviewing, this study explores how Vietnamese people perceive the current legal enforcement for inappropriate disposal of plastic waste and how they perceive the role of other stakeholders in the plastic problem.The findings indicate that the enforcement of the environmental law is perceived as too lenient by ordinary residents, emphasizing the need for stronger and more consistent enforcement.Furthermore, the study highlights that manufacturers, businesses, and the authorities should also share responsibility for the plastic waste issue, rather than solely placing the burden on consumers.The study also provides insights into the levels of single-use plastic cutleries and takeaway food and drinks consumption among the Vietnamese population.Additionally, it reveals the significance of traditional practices in Vietnamese culture, which can play a pivotal role in supporting 3R behavior.The preservation and promotion of these traditional practices are seen as valuable strategies in the modern context to tackle the plastic waste problem effectively.Overall, this study contributes to the ongoing effort to tackle the serious global threat of single-use plastic pollution and provides relevant recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders in Vietnam.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Self-reported consumption of single-use and takeaway plastic products.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Distribution of the frequencies of 3R behavior.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Perceived leniency of the current legal penalties.

Table 2 .
General information of the key informants.

Table 3 .
Nine key interviewing questions.
1 What are your views on single-use/takeaway plastic products?Follow-up questions: How often do you consume them?What makes you consume them?What makes you avoid them? 2 How have other people, including those you personally know, dealt with plastic waste?Follow-up questions: How responsible do you think they should be in this matter?How educated do you think they are about plastic products and plastic waste? 3 How have the local businesses and enterprises dealt with the plastic problem?Follow-up questions: How responsible do you think they should be in this matter?4 How have the authorities communicated to the general public regarding the reduction, reusing and recycling of plastic products?Follow-up questions: How effective do you think their campaigns or communication to the general public are?How responsible do you think they should be in this matter?5 How often do you reduce consuming products that contain single-use plastics, such as plastic packaging and wraps, plastic bottles, cutleries and plastic bags?Follow-up questions: What promotes your reduction?What prevents you from 9 Do you know how much a company would have to pay for inappropriate littering of plastic waste in Vietnam?How strict do you think the current legal penalties for businesses/enterprises are?Follow-up questions: Why do you think the penalties should be increased/decreased for businesses?