A person holds a coffee deposit cup introduced by Aarhus Municipality to increase the recycling of materials and to create a circular economy in the long term, in Aarhus, Denmark January 17, 2024. Ritzau Scanpix/via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. DENMARK OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN DENMARK.
HANOI: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a new policy approach to deal with waste, promote recycling and help Vietnam to achieve its environmental goals.
Phan Tuan Hung, director of the National Extended Producer Responsibility Council Office, said if properly and fully implemented, EPR would ensure the circulation of resources between the input and waste stages in the production process and help achieve the goal of no emissions.
“No matter what form of recycling a manufacturing enterprise chooses, cash will flow to businesses that collect and recycle waste,” Hung was quoted by Vietnam News Agency’s Tin Tuc (The News) newspaper as saying.
But only advanced and modern recycling technologies that meet environmental standards would benefit from the EPR policy, he stressed.
Small recyclers who struggle to acquire advanced technologies should join hands, he added.
This is the first year of EPR implementation in Vietnam and the hope is to create a change in the process of promoting the circular economy.
Local manufacturers and importers have embraced EPR quite early.
In 2021 nine enterprises, TH Group, Coca-Cola, FrieslandCampina, La Vie, Nestle, Nutifood, Suntory PepsiCo, Tetra Pak, and Universal Robina Corp, established the Packaging Recycling Organisation Vietnam.
Its mission is to develop a strong packaging collection and recycling ecosystem that helps increase recycling rates and minimise the amount of packaging discharged into the environment.
It has helped raise consumer awareness about recycling and waste classification and strengthened the existing packaging-collection ecosystem.
It has also supported the recycling programmes of treatment plants and factories that produce recycled materials.
In addition to the organisation’s efforts, its members have also actively participated and signed cooperation agreements with recyclers.
Suntory PepsiCo Vietnam Beverage and Duytan Plastic Recycling signed a strategic agreement for the supply of recycled plastic to the former to make packaging for its products in 2022-2026.
In October 2023 La Vie LLC signed a memorandum of understanding for a waste-plastic collection and recycling cooperation programme with Duytan Plastic Recycling.
Under the five-year programme the two have a target of collecting and recycling 11,000 tonnes of plastic waste.
In November, FrieslandCampina Vietnam signed an agreement with Dong Tien Binh Duong Paper Co Ltd and Truong Thinh Mechanical Construction Co Ltd to improve its waste-packaging collection and recycling capacity.
Many Vietnamese businesses are also seeking to invest in recycling plants.
Duytan Plastic Recycling has invested US$60mil in a plastic recycling plant that uses so called bottle-to-bottle technology.
The technology allows plastic to be recycled up to 50 times.
The factory is now among the five most modern and largest that recycle plastic in the world. It has a capacity of 40,000 tonnes a year.
Vietcycle Corp and Alba Group have established a 48,000-tonne recycling plant at a cost of US$50mil. It uses technology from Germany to recycle and create rPET plastic that meets international standards. — Viet Nam News/ANN
