In every Chinese city, there is an army of motorcycles and mopeds weaving through the traffic jams, and sometimes even venturing on sidewalks, to deliver millions of food and e-commerce orders each day. Meituan, one of China’s most popular food delivery apps, delivers 30 million orders a day, serving up 100 million plastic containers. According to Greenpeace, e-commerce and express delivery in China generated 9.4 million tons of packaging waste in 2018 and will likely triple to 41.3 million tons by 2025.

In December 2020, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc signed the country’s National Action Plan for Management of Marine Plastic, setting an ambitious goal for the government to reduce marine plastic litter by 75 percent by 2030. Recent surveys indicate that plastics are the most prevalent and dangerous form of waste choking Vietnam’s beaches and waterways. Whether polystyrene, discarded nets, or mismanaged single-use plastics, these items are not just an eyesore, but they imperil the local ecosystem and fishing industry in Vietnam. 

Indonesia generates nearly 7 million tons of plastic waste each year but only 10 percent of that is recycled. The proportion is even lower in rural areas due to a lack of collection facilities. Waste is often burned or dumped on vacant land, and into rivers, lakes, and seas. 

With white sandy beaches, cerulean waters, and lush jungles, Indonesia’s Raja Ampat Islands are some of the world’s most beautiful islands—and currently under threat from a growing plastic waste crisis. Covering 40,000 square kilometers of land and sea off the northwest tip of West Papua, Raja Ampat lies at the intersection of the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean tides in a biodiversity hotspot known as the Coral Triangle. 

Attempts to reduce the amount of waste flowing into the ocean from Indonesia are having limited success.  

China, which threw global plastic recycling markets into disarray in 2018 with its Green Sword policy banning plastic waste imports, has been ratcheting up domestic regulations to reign in single-use plastics. In January of 2020, China’s National Reform Development Commission announced a stringent policy for a nationwide plastic bag ban by 2022. China is not alone. Bans and taxes on plastic bags are spreading around the globe and they might soon come to your neighborhood, if they haven’t already. 

Indonesia. Crystal blue waters, palm trees swaying in the wind, endless sandy beaches, lush tropical jungles, towering mountains, lakes, rivers, and more; all are images that may come to mind when you think of Indonesia. But like other Asian countries, Indonesia’s booming development and increased consumption have generated an immense amount of waste, particularly single-use plastics that are leaking into the ocean. 

In May 2009, I was traveling with researchers from the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences to learn about rural water pollution. One of them realized it was Mother’s Day and decided to treat the 3 mothers in the group to a fishing trip. We soon pulled into a farm with rows of large concrete ponds filled with fish. This was my first introduction to the world’s largest aquaculture industry, where fish are farmed in ponds, reservoirs, and even rice paddies. China produces 50 million tons of seafood annually, far eclipsing the 0.5 million tons farmed in the United States.