Our story
The Zero Waste Saigon Project
Reduce plastic waste in Saigon and Vietnam
Since we moved to Vietnam in August of 2017, we’ve been very aware that single use plastic is everywhere. It bothered us from the start but when I saw some baby monkeys in the forest eating some plastic bags, we decided that we had to do something.
We then created a local group that gathered 1000 members in less than a month.
We are looking for solutions for businesses to lower their use of plastic while raising awareness to the public.
Julia Mesner
Julia manages apartments on Airbnb. She has a background in communication and marketing and has been working for the US government to promote tourism in the US. She is also a French travel blogger on Juliachou.fr. She loves traveling to meet people and cooking to share happiness. When she wants something, she works around the clock to make it happen.
Michael Burdge
Michael is the founder of Zero Waste Saigon along with his wife Julia. His mission is to reduce waste as much as possible. He is a certified TRUE Advisor. He helps businesses reduce their waste, runs an education program in schools around Saigon, sources sustainable alternatives, develops new products and runs awareness campaigns with the help of his organization and the large community they have established.
He is an American from California and yes, you probably guessed it, he loves yoga, Hollywood movies and guacamole.
Our Story
Julia hitchhiked from Miami Florida to Los Angeles California and met Michael at the end of her trip. After a few years of being friends, we went on a trip to Las Vegas and had our first date on a helicopter that dropped us with food and champagne at sunset in the Grand Canyon. That pretty much set the bar in our relationship. We have been travelling all over the world together ever since.
In October 2015 it became the 3 of us with our fabulous new addition to the family: Sebastien Miles.
