New approach for municipal solid waste governance aim to become green city
base on a sound material – cycle society initiative in Hanoi, Vietnam
Ngo Thi Lan Phuong, Yoshiro Higano, Helmut Yabar
University of Tsukuba, Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences.
1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8577, Japan
Email: binhan_84@yahoo.com

ABSTRACTTo establish low carbon, sustainable and natural symbiosis society, municipal solid waste (MSW) is
one of important part in integrated environmental management system. An initiative from Japan
named “a sound material-cycle society” toward MSW management is very successful model and it
now has been introduced and implemented in many countries, regions including Hanoi, Vietnam.
MSW in Hanoi, Vietnam at present causes many serious impacts on environment and becomes aburden for local government to deal with. Hanoi is regarded as one of the biggest waste generators inVietnam. The current MSW generation in Hanoi is average of 3,200 tons/day (Hanoi Urban
Environment Company, URENCO 2009) and it is estimated that the MSW amount will increase
threefold in coming years. MSW composition has been changing significantly because of living
standard and habit changes. Beside organic waste from households, a large proportion of hazardous
waste and non-degradable waste such as plastics, metal, can and glass (WB, 2004). However waste
collection and waste treatment systems in Hanoi has not been changed and adapted with theseincreasing trends. The original reasons are poor management system, lack of local people awareness,lack of funding and technologies…. The first and biggest challenge from this weak system is landfill
capacity. The large amount of waste in Hanoi now is mainly buried, treated and disposed in Nam
Son waste treatment complex (90%). The average amount of its capacity is 2,100 tons/day. In
comparison with designed capacity of this side, it is estimated to be full and overloaded by 2015.
Additionally, there is no ahead satisfactory project to build new landfill area. Around the city, there
are many illegal open dumping sites where many kind of waste directly discharged without anytreatment. Secondly, recycling activities from MSW in Hanoi has not been concentrated sufficiently.
Only less than 5% of organic waste is recycled by composting to produce fertilizers in Cau Diencomposting plant. Other materials have high possibility to recycle, especially business andcommercial waste, but at present they are in bulky mixed waste with low value. Thirdly, awarenessof local people with MSW management is still low and alarming. Local people throw waste
unmethodically, the illegal waste discharging in open dumping sites often happens at night andcauses many negative impacts on city beauty. Thus, this study proposes some solutions to help
Hanoi deal with current MSW difficulties by introducing an integrated MSW management system
combining sorted collection, new technologies and sanitary landfill.
This study aims to analyze the Japanese SMCS model in compatible condition with current waste inHanoi, Vietnam at the first step: waste classification. Author will conduct an area study in somemain wards in Hanoi with participation of household and super markets about waste classification atsource base on SMCS initiative and Japanese waste classification standards. The output of this study
is to identify MSW composition and material cycle aim to increase composting and recyclablematerial amount, quantify the reduction in landfill load and propose some policies to improve local
people awareness for better MSW governance.
Keywords: A Sound Material-Cycle Society, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), Waste classification,
landfill, recycling, Hanoi, Vietnam.