Laguna Golf Lang Co and other members of the Vietnam Golf Coast (VGC) are in the process of completely phasing out single-use plastics after reaching their final straw with the environmentally corrosive material. The best signature golf courses in Central Vietnam joined forces earlier this year as part of the Vietnam Golf Coast (VGC), a destination marketing effort geared towards cementing the region’s status as one of Asia’s leading places for play. Four of these clubs, Laguna Golf Lang Co (designed by Sir Nick Faldo), Ba Na Hills Golf Club (designed by Luke Donald), Montgomerie Links (designed by Colin Montgomerie) and the soon-to-open Hoiana Shores Golf Club (designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr.), have pledged to eliminate single-use plastics in their operations. With holes carved through jungle, on pristine hillsides and hard by the shores of the East Sea, the constituent members of the Vietnam Golf Coast (VGC) all showcase the stunning natural beauty of Central Vietnam. By scrapping items made of plastic such as garbage bags, locker room accessories, plastic cups and straws, the Vietnam Golf Coast (VGC) aims to safeguard these land and seascapes for future generations as well as providing as shining example in Asia’s golf industry when it comes to taking meaningful action to protect the environment. “Vietnam is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and we are fortunate enough to have one of its most visually stunning sites,” said Adam Calver, Director of Golf at Laguna Golf Lang Co and Chairman of the Vietnam Golf Coast (VGC). “As golf is a game that works in harmony with nature we have a responsiblity to take a leadership role in protecting the environment.” While nobody doubts the immense benefits offered by plastics in daily life, consensus is building about the need to address the toxic impact its overuse is having on our marine environments. Last year in Indonesia a dead sperm whale washed ashore with close to 6kg (13 lbs) of plastic waste in its stomach – which included 115 drinking cups. Each year up to 13 million tonnes of plastic leaks into our oceans, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. The drive to eliminate plastic throughout the Vietnam Golf Coast (VGC) is already at an advanced stage. Plastic garbage bags have been replaced by bamboo baskets, accessories have been switched to wooden or bamboo materials, paper cups have replaced plastic ones while all straws are made using paper, steel, bamboo or natural grass. “Bamboo was an obvious substitute for plastic given its abundance in the region,” said Tim Haddon, General Manager for Ba Na Hills Golf Club. “We feel that it adds an extra sense of place for our guests” “All of the clubs have already been taking action to reduce the use of plastics,” added Calver. “We feel that it is our responsibility as custodians of nature to do everything we can to eliminate any negative impact our facilities have on the environment.”

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Re­duc­ing the vol­ume of plas­tic waste in Thai­land has been an un­achiev­able task for a long time. Cut­ting down on sin­gle uses of plas­tic ma­te­ri­als has also been an is­sue largely ig­nored by most con­sumers. Of­fi­cial at­tempts, such as public aware­ness cam­paigns and vol­un­tary co­op­er­a­tion sought from busi­nesses, have al­ways been short-lived, leav­ing piles of plas­tic waste moun­tains rot­ting on poorly man­aged dump sites. But a re­cent ef­fort by the Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Depart­ment (PCD) sug­gests that we may be able to tackle the plas­tic waste prob­lem and ex­pect con­crete re­sults if gov­ern­ment agen­cies take se­ri­ous ac­tion, set achiev­able time-bound goals and reach out to key stake­hold­ers, es­pe­cially the pri­vate sec­tor that gen­er­ates plas­tic ma­te­ri­als. On Wed­nes­day the PCD re­ported its progress on its plan to end the use of plas­tic cap seals on drink­ing wa­ter bot­tles. Di­rec­tor-gen­eral Sunee Piya­pan­pong said nine man­u­fac­tur­ers of drink­ing wa­ter have stopped us­ing plas­tic cap seals. By next year, the PCD tar­gets half of all man­u­fac­tur­ers to do the same. By 2019, it aims for all of them to put an end to this un­nec­es­sary pack­ag­ing. Plas­tic cap seals on wa­ter bot­tles are not ma­te­ri­als used to as­sure hy­giene or safety stan­dards, ac­cord­ing to the PCD. Due to their light weight and minute scale, cap seals be­come plas­tic waste that is dif­fi­cult to man­age. They are too small to be ef­fec­tively col­lected. Their light weight makes it easy for them to be scat­tered in the en­vi­ron­ment. Ev­ery year Thai­land gen­er­ates 4.4 bil­lion bot­tles of drink­ing wa­ter, with 60% us­ing plas­tic cap seals, gen­er­at­ing 520 tonnes of waste. In set­ting this goal for end­ing cap seal use, the PCD goes be­yond the usual ap­proaches of rais­ing public aware­ness or seek­ing vol­un­tary co­op­er­a­tion from the pri­vate sec­tor. It has en­gaged all man­u­fac­tur­ers in talks and in­vited them to join a me­moran­dum of un­der­stand­ing — an agree­ment that they will fol­low the same di­rec­tion. The ef­fort of the depart­ment is an ex­am­ple of a step-by-step ap­proach that gov­ern­ment agen­cies should ap­ply when it comes to tack­ling the sin­gle use of plas­tic bags. It has been proved that vol­un­tary ef­forts by ask­ing for co­op­er­a­tion from con­sumers and busi­nesses does not yield con­crete re­sults. In­stead, the wide­spread habit of the sin­gle use of plas­tic bags oc­cur­ring al­most at ev­ery point of sale has be­come a com­mon habit in Thai­land. At su­per­mar­kets, fresh mar­kets, con­ve­nience stores, mom-and-pop shops and street ven­dors, the av­er­age Thai con­sumer is of­fered plas­tic bags for al­most ev­ery­thing they bought, and they in fact also ex­pect it as a kind of ser­vice. Ev­ery year, Thais use more than 70 bil­lion bags, which ac­count for more than 20% of the coun­try’s to­tal solid waste. Even though there have been many cam­paigns in re­cent years urg­ing con­sumers to opt for cloth bags, the ef­forts have not been suc­cess­ful as they have been only tem­po­rar­ily adopted by a small por­tion of con­sumers and re­tail­ers. Prime Min­is­ter Prayut Chan-o-cha him­self tried to lead a re­newed at­tempt in June, act­ing as a poster boy for a cam­paign run by the Depart­ment of En­vi­ron­men­tal Qual­ity Pro­mo­tion call­ing for con­sumers to re­frain from plas­tic bag use three days a week. The cam­paign has done lit­tle to change con­sumers’ be­hav­iour. It is time for au­thor­i­ties to start tak­ing a more vig­or­ous ap­proach through con­crete ac­tion to cut down the use of plas­tic bags. They should ex­plore en­force­able op­tions such as the im­po­si­tion of levies on the pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­bu­tion of plas­tic bags by busi­nesses and the use of them by con­sumers. Ban­ning them out­right may face public re­sis­tance. If buy­ers have to pay one or two baht for ev­ery bag they need, they will even­tu­ally re­duce the use of plas­tic bags or even re­cy­cle the old ones they have. Mean­while, state agen­cies should also un­der­stand the na­ture of many Thai con­sumers who usu­ally rely on take­aways as sources of cooked food wrapped in plas­tic bags or foam con­tain­ers. If the gov­ern­ment pro­vides in­cen­tives for busi­nesses to pro­duce and use food con­tain­ers made from re­cy­clable ma­te­ri­als, this can draw wider sup­port. The need to cut down plas­tic waste is an ur­gent mat­ter. Plas­tic waste harms our liveli­hoods, block­ing drains and ex­ac­er­bat­ing flood­ing, for ex­am­ple. It also poses threats to the en­vi­ron­ment. Last year Thai­land re­port­edly dumped 2.83 tonnes of garbage into the sea, 12% of which was plas­tic waste. Ma­rine an­i­mals have in­gested plas­tic bags, mis­tak­ing them for food. Plas­tic waste in the ocean has also de­graded into mi­croplas­tic con­sumed by ma­rine micro­organ­isms such as zoo­plank­ton and fish, en­ter­ing into our aquatic food chain. Gov­ern­ment agen­cies need to en­gage di­rectly and equally with all man­u­fac­tur­ers and distrib­u­tors of plas­tic ma­te­ri­als, set­ting tough rules that will pro­tect the en­vi­ron­ment even though this may up­set them. Source: Bangkok Post

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