Research Resume

Sustainable Wastewater Management from Paper Making Activities
in Vietnam: Case Study in Phong Khe Craft Village
DAO Minh Khue*, Yoshiro HIGANO, Helmut YABAR and Takeshi MIZUNOYA
Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba,
1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, 305-8572*
daominhkhue@gmail.com

1. Introduction
Craft village is a particular production model of Bac Ninh rural area, that plays animportant role in the local economic growth and creates jobs for many local citizens. Whilecraft villages provides many economic benefits we must also take into consideration theenvironmental impacts associated with their activities.
Phong Khe is a waste- paper recycling craft village, which has polluted the water
environment seriously due to directly discharging wastewater into the adjacent river. It has
significant impacts on residents’ life activities in this area. Therefore, this paper introduces anintegrated wastewater management system for paper making in Phong Khe and propose
corresponding measures to ensure a sustainable production and development.
2. Methodology
2.1 Data Collection
2.1.1 Secondary dataSecondary data on waste paper making development and pollution situation in Phong Khewere collected from previous researches and reports of different agencies such as Phong KhePeople Committee, Department of Nature Resources and Environment in Bac Ninh province,
Project Management Unit of Bac Ninh province. Those data will provide backgroundinformation of Phong Khe such as socio-economic situation, paper production activities,
environmental situation evaluation, etc. In addition, data on common wastewater treatment
technologies are collected for reference purpose.
2.1.2 Primary data
There are three kinds of primary data including data from household survey, discussions
among residential-group-leaders, and consultations with a technical expert on wastewater
treatment technologies. The necessary data include information’s on the wastepaper recycling
process and its related activities, the effect of processing activities on environment and humanhealth, the resident’s viewpoints of the pollution situation and their opinions on options ofpollution control solutions. Technical experts will visit the study site to observe theprocessing activities, wastewater discharge, and drainage systems and then design thewastewater treatment options. They also provide information on cost of technology options asa base for the cost effectiveness analysis.
2.2 Analysis Procedure
Based on the primary and secondary data, the cost effectiveness analysis will be made to
identify the least cost option on wastewater treatment through treatment cost per cubic meterof wastewater.

13. Literature Review
3.1 Environmental Consequences at waste paper making process
There are four hamlets recycling waste paper in Phong Khe village but most of theproduction activities are located in Duong O and Dao Xa, and only a few are located in Ngo
Khe and Cham Khe. Currently, 180 households in this village are engaged in paper
production, producing about 120,000 ton/year (2007). Each household workshop is 500 m2.
Paper producing activities are run by father- to-son-experience of residents in the village.
Input materials mostly are waste papers collected from many places of Vietnam and imported
from other countries. Most of facilities using in this village are old models produced before
1980.
Major production workshops have not installed wastewater treatment system. Therefore,
wastewater with high concentration of color chemicals and other smelly substances are freely
discharging into river and residential drainage system. Paper, tars, pulp and chemicals used inproduction have directly affected local people’s health. Over 5,000 m3 untreated wastewaterwith heavy effluents of COD, BOD and SS from residual chemicals,
pulp, fibers with high levels of organic are discharged from this village every day, running
directly to the canals and Ngu Huyen Khe River that run to Cau River1. According to analysis
water sample at production areas, concentration of polluted substances exceeded many times
the established standards. It exceeded the standards 4.5 to 13 times for the concentration ofBOD5, 12.5 to 37 times for COD, 17 to 19 times for to TSS, especially, 50 to 160 times forchlorine2. The wastewater causes serious pollution in the village, leading to a high incidenceof ailments such as headaches, backaches, respiratory diseases, skin irritation, stomachaches
and sore eyes3. Those impacts have significant impacts on surface and underground water
surrounding Phong Khe village and its river.
Phong Khe is also facing with other environmental challenges such as air pollution andland degradation due to using a huge amount of coal and wood for steam boiler in the paper
making process and poor managing solid waste and other chemicals during production
process.
3.2 Wastewater treatment technologies
Wastewater treatment is the process of removing contaminants from wastewater. It
includes physical, chemical and biological processes to remove different types ofcontaminants. Households, processing activities, and commercial and industrial
establishments produce wastewater. It can be collected and transported through a pipe systemand pump stations to a municipal treatment plant.
There are many kinds of wastewater treatment technologies with various sizes and basing
on different input water quality. Usually, wastewater treatment involves three stages: primary,secondary and tertiary treatment. In the first stage, solids are separated from the wastewater.
In the secondary stage, dissolved biological matter in the wastewater is progressively
converted into a solid mass by indigenous, water-borne bacteria. Finally, the biological solids
are neutralized and then disposed of or reused, and the treated water may be disinfectedchemically or physically. The final effluent can be discharged into a natural surface waterbody.
3.3 Cost Effectiveness Analysis
Cost effectiveness analysis (CEA) refers to the evaluation of alternatives according toboth their cost and their effects with regard to producing some outcome. Decision-making
must focus on the choice of alternatives for meeting a particular objective. When costs arecombined with measures of effectiveness and all alternatives can be evaluated according to2

their costs and their contribution to meeting the same effectiveness criterion, we have theingredients for a CEA. The most cost effectiveness alternative is the lowest cost one.
For waste treatment management systems, a cost-effective solution is one, which will
minimize total resource cost to meet the required quality standards and treatment. Resources
cost include capital (construction and lands), operation, maintenance and replacements, socialand environmental costs.
4. Tentative Research Findings and Challenges
4.1 Waste paper making in Phong Khe craft village

Fig 1. The common Waste Paper Making Process in Phong Khe craft village, Bac Ninh province
In Fig.1, firstly, waste papers collected from various sources will be the input materials of
the paper recycling process. Then, it will be crushed by hydraulic crusher together with somewhitening chemicals and water. A huge amount of wastewater with high concentration of SS,
BOD, COD, losing fiber will be discharged after crushing. Then the paper fiber liquid will betransferred to the tank for fiber separation later. Big sized fiber will be crushed again. After that,those liquid will be moved to grinding disc to make better quality. Mixing flour and dry are thenext step to make the final paper products. In addition, wastewater, losing fiber, scattered color
chemicals are discharged into environment.
4.2 Waste paper activities in surveyed households
One hundred and eighty production households are selected for carrying out the survey.
Collected information are (i) processing activities such as scale, inputs, outputs, production costs,and sales; (ii) the effects of processing activities on the environment and human health in termsof waste volumes, respondents’ assessments of the changes in the quality ofunderground/surface water; and (iii) the residents’ perceptions of the pollution situation and theiropinions on the pollution control options. Those data have been in an on-going process ofanalyzing for more detail.
4.3 Environmental impacts of the process
Effluents of waste and wastewater from the paper recycling process, awareness ofenvironmental problems, incidence of disease and local efforts to mitigate the water pollution in
Phong Khe village are major issues should be mentioned in this part. Those data are on-goingprocess of summarizing and analyzing.
4.4 Pollution Control Options
Basing on the socio-economic, environmental situation and consultations of technicalexperts on wastewater technologies, it suggested that there are three options of controlling waterpollution in Phong Khe including: (1) a small treatment plant for every household; (2) a3

treatment plant for a group of processing households; (3) a treatment plant for the whole village.
Each of technology option will be considered its effectiveness and affordability for the socioeconomic condition of the village and production households. Costs of options should be
calculated and compared in order to chose the most effective one.
5. Future works
After getting some suggested options of wastewater treatment for Phong Khe village, I will
study more on those technology solutions and their costs then calculate different options anddecide the most appropriate one.
In addition, I will study more some literature review on wastewater management, existingand potential ideas of economic solutions, and awareness raising solutions in other countries inorder to provide policy implications for improvements and sustainable development.
6. Acknowledgement
The authors wish to extend our gratitude to technical consultants on wastewater technologies,
leaders of Bac Ninh Natural Resources and Environment Department, households at the researchsite for their great contribution and support during my survey.
7. Reference[1] [2] Bac Ninh Department of Natural Resources and Environment, A Report on Analyzing
Wastewater Quality in Phong Khe, Bac Ninh province, 2008[3] Business News, Pollution in a craft village,
http://thoibaokinhdoanh.vn/index.php?q=articles/%C3%B4-nhi%E1%BB%85mn%E1%BA%B7ng-%E1%BB%9F-l%C3%A0ng-ngh%E1%BB%81-ngh%C3%ACnt%E1%BB%B7&quicktabs_1=1 (Accessed 25.6.2012)[4] Phong Khe Commune People’s Committee, Annual Report on the Socio-Economic Situationof Duong Lieu Commune. Duong Lieu Village. Vietnam, 2010 & 2011.
[5] Bac Ninh People Committee, Decision 145/2011/QD-UBND on approval of the project ofpolution control at Phong Khe paper making craft village, 2011[6] Robert H.Van Note, Paul V.Hebert, Ramesh M.Patel, Craig Chupek and Lester Feldman, A
guide to the selection of cost-effective wastewater treatment systems, 2nd Ed., U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, JULY 1975
[7] Henry M.Levin, Patrick J. McEwa, Cost-Effectivess Analysis: Methods and Applications, 2ndEd., 2001
[8] Mohamed A.S., E.V.Beek and O.A.Elnawawy, A framework for assessing cost effectivenessof wastewater treatment for Nile Water Pollution Control.
http://cedb.asce.org/cgi/WWWdisplay.cgi?0100581 (Accessed 12.02.2012)4