Sands of the long tree-lined beach of Da Loc are covered with plastic waste that were belched out of an ocean that is also littered with blue plastic bags.

Just south of the capital Hanoi, the once-peaceful and clean beach of Da Loc in Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa province has been slowly suffocating under the weight of plastic waste for decades.

Pham Thi Lai, 60, a local seafood processor said: “They put everything in a plastic bag. If they’re preserving shrimp or preserving fish, they put it in a plastic bag,”

“When they finish they just throw the bags into the ocean. The trash floats to wherever the sea level rises,” she said according to Reuters.

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Globally, eight million tons of plastic is dumped into the ocean every year, killing marine life and entering the human food chain, said the UN Environment Program.

The latest example was a pilot whale that died in Thailand with some 80 pieces of plastic rubbish found in its stomach.

World Environment Day on Tuesday focused on beating plastic pollution, with a call for citizens, companies and civil society groups to organize the “biggest-ever worldwide cleanup”.

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On Monday, 41 embassies and international organizations in Vietnam signed a pledge to combat plastic pollution in the country.

Canadian ambassador Ping Kitnikone said in a statement: “As international partners, we have the privilege to work in Vietnam, and have a collective responsibility to reduce our plastic footprint in this beautiful country.”

Ngo Ngoc Dinh, head of Da Loc People’s Committee said: “Water rises and falls every day, how can we clean it all? We can’t escape it, we have to solve it ourselves.”