We are the answer to Vietnam’s drastic plastic problem
I have been saving more than $100 each month by cooking my own meals and not buying takeaways or deliveries.
But saving money was not my initial motivation. It was to cut down on the use of plastic as much as possible.
“When I pour your coffee in this, please don’t ask me why it’s lesser than normal,” the employee of a coffee shop on Dien Bien Phu Street in Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Thanh District warned me.
She said this after giving me a strange look as I gave her a tumbler I had taken with me and asked her to pour my coffee into it instead of serving it in a single-use plastic cup.
My tumbler was a bit bigger than the size of the plastic cup used by the coffee shop, so when the usual amount of coffee and ice was poured into it, it would look like I was being served less coffee than normal.
It was totally cool for me, but not for her.
Luu Dinh Long
