Learning

Document name Issuing Organization Activity
Organic fertilizer MR INNOVATION (Korea)
Lam Nguyen 0202
131views
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2 years ago
Eco-friendly Polyester Staple Fiber made of recycled plastic by KeonBaek (South Korea)
Lam Nguyen 0202
127views
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2 years ago
Technology of organic fertilizer production from livestock waste: Lessons from Jeesung (South Korea)
Lam Nguyen 0202
64views
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2 years ago
Issue Brief: Inclusion of Informal Waste Workers (IWWs) in the transition to sustainable waste management
Lam Nguyen 0202
193views
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3 years ago
Report “Integration of the informal sector into the implementation of the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme for plastic packaging”
Lam Nguyen 0202
79views
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3 years ago
Report “Constraints, levers and possible recommendation for the integration of not-yet-collected plastic packaging at the aggregator and recycler levels in Ho Chi Minh City”
Lam Nguyen 0202
31views
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3 years ago
Issue Brief: Inclusion of Informal Waste Workers (IWWs) in the transition to sustainable waste management

Following the revision of the Law on Environmental Protection (LEP) in 2020, new provisions anchoring waste management to the process of the circular economy are being implemented such as plastic waste reduction, waste sorting obligations, and the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy for packaging which will come into effect in 2024. The EPR will fundamentally affect the waste collection, sorting and recycling system in Viet Nam, which is partially undertaken by the informal sector.
In this context, it is critical to reconsider the integration of collectors into the waste management system. As key players, they are actively contributing to decreasing the amount of waste which winds up in the environment, and by doing so, reducing the financial burden for municipalities. Nevertheless, they are not officially recognized by public authorities, an issue which has been identified as a major bottleneck for the Informal Waste Workers (IWWs) in accessing social services. This informal workforce, most of which are women, is vulnerable to waste price fluctuations, land occupation issues, health injuries and suffers from social stigma.
Drawings on the lessons learned from pilot projects and findings from the workshop in Quy Nhon, this brief offers recommendations for provincial and central policymakers, to strengthen the livelihoods of informal waste workers and support their inclusion in evolving waste management systems.
Firstly, there is a need to recognize the roles, and include the voices, of informal waste workers in the upcoming waste management policies. These pilot projects uncovered the critical roles of informal waste workers and call for better recognition of IWWs as a workforce that can contribute to the EPR system and more broadly, to the transition toward a circular economy.
Secondly, the whole supporting ecosystem shall join hands in improving the working conditions of the collectors to accelerate efficiency. IWWs need financial facilities, adequate working space, access to professional equipment supplies, support to register or to join legal entities, and access to social benefits.
Lastly, the integration of IWWs in the waste management system is a complex and multi-faceted process requiring a coordinated approach. Therefore, it necessitates the involvement of the public sector at the national and the local levels in linking with the IWW and ensuring their inclusion, the private sector to facilitate their access to waste, the academic community to generate and disseminate specific knowledge, and the engagement of NGO/CSOs/development partners in delivering capacity building, advocacy messages, and supporting (re)structuration.

3 years ago
Report “Constraints, levers and possible recommendation for the integration of not-yet-collected plastic packaging at the aggregator and recycler levels in Ho Chi Minh City”

According to HCMC Department of Natural Resources and Environment, the City disposes of 9,500 tons of domestic solid waste every day, in which plastic waste accounts for a high proportion (ranked after organic waste only), about more than 1,500 tons. The amount of waste increases on average from 6 – 10% per year. The rapid increase of municipal solid waste, which has diverse and complex properties and composition, has put pressure on the waste management system.

The pilot project ‘Enhancing plastic packaging collection, sorting and recycling’, implemented by the Institut de la Recherche pour le Development (IRD) and the Hanoi Architectural University (HAU), is funded by the ‘Rethinking Plastics – Circular Economy Solutions to Marine Litter’ project of the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). ‘Rethinking Plastics’ is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Expertise France.

To fulfill all the activities of the pilot project, IRD contracted with ENDA to elaborate and conduct social surveys along the post consumers plastic packaging value chain (including consumers, domestic and recyclable aggregators, transporters, recyclers) in order to identify and report the constraints, levers and possible recommendations for the integration of not-yet-collected plastic packaging at the aggregator recyclers levels.

3 years ago