Plastic pollution in waterways poses a significant global challenge, largely stemming from land-based sources and subsequently transported by rivers to marine environments. With a substantial percentage of marine plastic waste originating from land-based sources, comprehending the trajectory and temporal experience of single-use plastic bottles assumes paramount importance. This project designed, developed, and released a plastic pollution tracking device, coinciding with Vietnam’s annual Plastic Awareness Month. By mapping the plastic tracker’s journey through the Saigon River, this study generated high-fidelity data for comprehensive analysis and bolstered public awareness through regular updates on the Re-Think Plastics Vietnam website. The device, equipped with technologies such as drone flight controller, open-source software, embedded computing, and cellular networking effectively captured GPS position, track, and localized conditions experienced by the plastic bottle tracker on its journey. This amalgamation of data contributes to the understanding of plastic pollution behaviors and serves as a data set for future initiatives aimed at plastic prevention in the ecologically sensitive Mekong Delta. By illuminating the transportation of single-use plastic bottles in the riparian waterways of Ho Chi Minh City and beyond, this study plays a role in collective efforts to understand plastic pollution and preserve aquatic ecosystems. By deploying a GPS-enabled plastic tracker, this study provides novel, high-resolution empirical data on plastic transport in urban tidal systems. These findings contribute to improving waste interception strategies and informing environmental policies aimed at reducing plastic accumulation in critical retention zones.

Plastic pollution is a growing environmental and social concern, particularly in Southeast Asia, where urban rivers serve as key pathways for transporting waste to marine environments. This scoping review examines 110 peer-reviewed studies to understand how plastic pollution in waterways is being researched, addressed, and reconceptualized. Drawing from the literature across environmental science, technology, and social studies, we identify four interconnected areas of focus: urban pollution pathways, innovations in monitoring and methods, community-based interventions, and interdisciplinary perspectives. Our analysis combines qualitative synthesis with visual mapping techniques, including keyword co-occurrence networks, to explore how real-time tools, such as IoT sensors, multi-sensor systems, and geospatial technologies, are transforming the ways plastic waste is tracked and analyzed. The review also considers the growing use of novel theoretical frameworks, such as post-phenomenology and ecological materialism, to better understand the role of plastics as both pollutants and ecological agents. Despite progress, the literature reveals persistent gaps in longitudinal studies, regional representation, and policy translation, particularly across the Global South. We emphasize the value of participatory models and community-led research in bridging these gaps and advancing more inclusive and responsive solutions. These insights inform the development of plastic tracker technologies currently being piloted in Vietnam and contribute to broader sustainability goals, including SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 14 (Life Below Water).

People have different temptations and habitual behaviors they wish to change, often imagining a better version of themselves. However, most existing behavior-change interventions rely on conscious self-regulation. Existing tools require users to notice a prompt, interpret it, and deliberately override an impulse, which is cognitively demanding and prone to failure when behavior becomes automatic. In this paper, we explore sensory interruptions as a way to bridge perception, cognition, and behavior. These interruptions aim to momentarily disrupt autopilot behavior and enable users to regain control. We evaluated four sensory interruptions: vibrotactile, heat, cold, and audio, with 11 participants. Our findings reveal clear subjective trade-offs: vibrotactile was often perceived as habituated, while heat was effective but generally disliked due to its punitive feel. Nevertheless, most interruptions produced a brief micro-pause that prompted participants to reconsider their behavior, highlighting the potential of physical modulation as a complementary approach to self-regulation.

This paper examines how heritage, innovation, and sustainability are negotiated between academic researchers and textile artisans in Hoa Tien, a Vietnamese craft village participating in the Vietnam Design Research Studio. The pilot study initially sought to co-create a digital platform to document local weaving practices. However, fieldwork revealed significant gaps between academic vocabularies of preservation, digital futures, and sustainable design, and the artisans’ tacit, embodied, and livelihood-oriented knowledge systems. Using participatory action research and ethnographic methods, the study shows how textile craft operates within fashion as a cultural, economic, and discursive system. Artisans framed their practice through ancestral motifs, intergenerational transmission, and economic pragmatism, while researchers emphasised documentation, innovation, and future-oriented sustainability. These divergent discourses exposed the limits of conventional co-design models that assume shared language, symmetrical knowledge, or common goals. The paper reframes co-creation as an adaptive, semiotic, and discursive process shaped by language, epistemology, and situated practice. By foregrounding these negotiations, it contributes to debates on how alternative fashion languages emerge from the margins and how they might inform more inclusive and context-sensitive approaches to sustainable fashion futures.