1
Department of Development and Planning
Aalborg University
Fibigerstræde 13
9220 Aalborg Øst
3rd Semester
Environmental Management and Sustainability Science
Title: Solid Waste Management in Hanoi
Project period: 21-09-2011 - 09-01-2012
Supervisor: David Christensen
_____________________________
Bergliot Jeanne Jensen
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Preface
I would like to express a warm thank you to National Institute for Science and Technology Policy and
Strategy Studies, NISTPASS, who accepted my request for an internship and provided me with an office
space, visa and overall guidance, and especially Dr. Bach Tanh Sinh for being so positive towards my stay
in Hanoi. Thank you to my informants, Dr. Thang and Ms. Huong. A big thank you to Dang Lan Huong,
who has answered my questions about Hanoi life and been a valued friend during my stay. Thank you to
Carrie Mitchell for taking the time to guide me to find a focus. Thank you to Ms. Giang who has spent
time on meetings with me, on answering my questions and giving me highly valued contacts. Thank you
to my supervisor in Denmark, David Christensen.
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Table of Content
PREFACE
3
TABLE OF CONTENT
4
LIST OF APPENDIX
6
ABSTRACT
7
INTRODUCTION
8
STUDY OBJECTIVE
13
METHODOLOGY
15
LITERATURE STUDY
SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS
INFORMANTS
REFLECTIONS ON THE CONTEXT OF THE STUDY
DELIMITATION
15
15
16
17
18
THEORETICAL APPROACH
20
INSTITUTIONAL THEORY
STAKEHOLDER THEORY
LADDER OF CITIZEN PARTICIPATION
STAKEHOLDERS, PARTICIPATION AND INSTITUTIONS
20
20
23
26
BACKGROUND
27
CONTEXT
OVERVIEW OF VIETNAM
THE INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE IN VIETNAM
THE ADMINISTRATIVE FRAMEWORK
27
27
28
30
SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT IN HANOI
33
CURRENT SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT IN HANOI
THE WASTE
COLLECTION AND DISPOSAL
33
34
36
4
THE INFORMAL WASTE RECOVERY INDUSTRY
38
THE BACKGROUND
THE WORK
DONOR ASSISTED SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PROJECTS
38
38
41
BARRIERS IN THE MUNICIPAL APPROACH
44
CURRENT SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
BARRIERS IN CURRENT SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
URENCO AND THE INFORMAL SECTOR
BARRIER: ISPONRE DOES NOT GET ANY INPUT WHEN MAKING SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PLANS
BARRIER: NO POLICY FOR THE INFORMAL SECTOR
BARRIER: DECISION MAKERS DETACHED FROM THE INFORMAL SECTOR
BARRIER: TOO MANY RESPONSIBLE DECISION-MAKERS
BARRIERS AND THEORY
STAKEHOLDERS IN MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
ACTORS AND HIERARCHY
45
47
48
48
49
49
49
50
51
51
FUTURE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
53
CONCLUSION
57
REFERENCES
60
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List of appendix
• Interview with Dr. Thang
• Transcription of interview with Dr. Thang
• Interview with Ms. Huong
• Transcription of interview with Ms. Huong
• The National Strategy on Integrated Solid Waste Management
• JICA Vol. 06 Report
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Abstract
As a result of Vietnam’s industrialisation, rapid urbanisation and economic growth, the amounts of
waste are bigger than ever before and will continue increasing in the future.
The handling of waste is very important towards providing an efficient waste management system that
is able to reduce public health issues and environmental risks.
Most of the municipal waste in Vietnam is not safely disposed of, even though there have been
improvements by the public urban environmental companies (URENCOs) that are responsible for
municipal waste collection and disposal. Recycling and reuse of solid waste is an active industry in
Vietnam, made up by an informal network of waste pickers at landfills, informal waste collectors, and
waste buyers, namely the informal waste recovery sector.
The current and future challenges with waste calls for an exploration of the solid waste management
system, as it needs to be highly efficient in order to deal with the future amounts of solid waste. Given
the social and institutional structures in Vietnam, a participatory approach could be a part of the
solution towards a more sustainable society. The municipality has put forward a goal of making Hanoi a
city that is “Green, Clean and Beautiful”, and within this also lays a big focus on waste.
This thesis investigates the municipal approach to the informal waste recovery sector. For the most part,
the recycling of solid waste is being conducted by the informal sector, and this thesis is mapping of the
municipalities’ approach to the informal waste recovery industry’s handling of the collection and
recycling. In the official strategies, the municipality is not approaching the informal sector and studying
the subject through literature and interviews, has shown there to be a range of barriers. The barriers are
related to the institutional culture within the decision making process, namely that the stakeholders
below the governmental organisations are not taken into consideration and the URENCO and other
stakeholders have no means on their own to act or cooperate outside of the municipally chosen
strategy.
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Introduction
Asian countries are in rapid growth because of economic progress, industrialisation, urbanisation and
population migration, and Vietnam is no exception.
In 2010, 51 % of the Vietnamese population lived in urban areas (Richardson 2003) (World Bank 2010).
Just recently, Vietnam has moved up from being classified as a developing country, to being in the lower
part of middle-income countries. Currently, the big cities in Vietnam are undergoing a great deal of
economic growth. But the increased use of energy, more traffic and more people generating waste
contributes to environmental problems and climate change. To an extent, development has been at the
expense of environment. The goal is to become a modern and industrial country by 2020, but this could
be the path to environmental degradation with an increase of industrial pollution, lack of resources,
pollution of water resources and air pollution (Hardy 2003).
Aesthetic issues, land-use, health, water-, air-, soil pollution and economic issues are among the
important challenges regarding solid waste management. Globally, solid waste management is a big
challenge, but for low-income countries such as Vietnam, there are other challenges, such as limited
social, financial and political resources (Ngo 2001). One of the reasons that Vietnam is out of the
developing country category, is that it has become a high-growth country, which for example is reflected
in the increasing consumption.
It is estimated that by 2025 the solid waste amounts in Asia will be as much as 1,8 million tons of
municipal solid waste/day or 5.2 m3/day. This is partly due to the increased population in the urban
districts, but also because of industrialisation and economic prosperity. In Vietnam, the percentage of
the population below the poverty line was in 1998, a few years after big economic reforms, 37.4 %,
while ten years after, in 2008, it had dropped to 14.5 %. (The World Bank 2012)
The solid waste amounts in Vietnam are forecasted to be approx. 43,6 mio. tons in 2015, approx. 67,7
mio. tons in 2025 and up to 91 million tons in 2025; especially the big cities are contributing to these
highly increasing numbers (Chi 2009).
Solid waste management requires the use of many different disciplines and is a complex, but important
matter in order to secure an environmentally sustainable society. It includes the process of generation,
collection, treating and disposing of waste in a way that is the safest, most economically and most
environmentally suitable way. Good and efficient solid waste management also depends on the
cooperation and information between the government, municipalities, communities, households and
private companies, and many elements must be taken into consideration in order to provide an
adequate environmental service (Richardson 2003).
Inappropriate solid waste management due to an insufficient solid waste management system and lack
of capacity, may cause environmental degradation and a range of environmental-, health-, and safety
problems (Asian Productivity Organisation 2007). The dumping of waste outside the municipal waste
system, into rivers, lakes and directly on the ground contaminates the surface and the ground water
causing environmental issues as for example air-, water- and soil pollution.
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In 1986, the government shifted from a state planned economy to a more market – oriented economy,
when it introduced the Doi Moi economic reforms, which brought along market investments and
opened up for foreign investment. In 1986 at the 6th Party Congress the economic opening of the
country was proclaimed. It got implemented in 1992 and became effective with the suspension of the
American embargo in 1994. The opening up was not a goal in itself, but an outcome of constant
economic depression since 1982-1983, which was brought by an end to Soviet foreign aid. Vietnam
needed this aid for survival, but within a period of a few months, the aid stopped. Thus, there was a
great need for alternative sources of aid; international aid, foreign companies, funds from the Diaspora.
Around seven years later the government introduced and actively promoted a market economy.
Reforms were then extended to industry, trade, banks, state-run and foreign companies. This caused
Vietnam to be one of the fastest growing countries globally and it improved the life quality of many
Vietnamese people (Albrecht, Hocquard and Papin 2010).
The government still controls many sectors, and most enterprises are still state-owned, but the plan for
the near future is to expand the partially privatized state-owned enterprises (U.S Department of State
n.d.).
Hanoi is the second biggest city in Vietnam, with approx. 2.668 mio. people, consisting of 11 urban
districts. The city is controlled by the state, which has given the administrative responsibility to the
Municipal People’s Council. The Hanoi People’s Committee is an executive organ of the Municipal
People’s Council, and operates on a local level. For an explanation, see section on The Institutional
Structure in Vietnam.
The Urban Environment One Member State-owned Limited Company in Hanoi, Hanoi URENCO, is
Hanoi’s public waste management organisation, but there is a range of management issues which
results in challenges for the society. In the urban areas of Vietnam, including Hanoi, there are different
challenges related to house hold waste, e.g. disposal of it on the ground clogs the drains, which creates
a ground for insect breeding and floods during the rainy seasons. The burning of wastes or inappropriate
incineration contributes to the air pollution, and at landfills, gasses are generated from the
decomposition of the organic wastes. The ground water can be contaminated, causing health problems
when using it for bathing, cooking and as drinking water. Besides environmental effects, there are
additional health and safety issues. Insects and rodents can be found in inappropriately dumped waste,
and can possible spread diseases such as cholera and dengue fever (Unit, Urban Development Sector
1999). In addition, there is also a range of challenges related to the collection and handling of medical
waste and industrial waste, which again needs to be treated under different circumstances than the
waste created from daily life by households.
It is important to understand the context of which the waste is being generated, namely the availability
of resources, the conditions of the society it is created in and the environmental circumstances (Asian
Productivity Organisation 2007). Estimations show that future waste amounts will increase and so the
forthcoming demand for solid waste management is challenging, and will add more pressure on the
already strained solid waste management system in Hanoi (Nguyen 2004).
The more specific challenges for Hanoi in reaching an adequate solid waste management is e.g. lack of
financial resources, facilities, manpower, infrastructure and legislation (Asian Productivity Organisation
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2007). If the solid waste management practices should be changed, these are some of the issues that
need to be considered.
A bigger share of sorted, separated and collected waste could be a way to optimise the waste system by
improving the recycling and putting less pressure on the landfills. The current situation is that the
landfills where the waste from Hanoi goes are in a bad state regarding the surrounding environment and
society, and will have reached their operating lifespan, and there is lack of an adequate replacement or
even solution (The Economist Intelligence Unit 2011).
In Hanoi as well as in other urban areas of Vietnam the situation is characterized by insufficient solid
waste treatment facilities which do not comply with the amounts of waste in need to be treated (Böhm
2011). A big percentage of the collected waste from urban parts of Hanoi is being sent to the Nam Soc
landfill, 40 kilometres out of Hanoi. This landfill will have reached its limit by 2013 (URENCO, URENCO's
environmental business on 3R in Hanoi City 2011).
In 2004, 32 % of the municipal waste currently placed in disposal sites in the urban areas of Vietnam, or
approx. 2.1 million tons of waste/year, consisted of recyclable materials such as paper, plastic, metal,
and glass (World Bank, MONRE, CIDA 2004).
In 2005, only 17 of the Vietnams 91 major landfill sites complied with national standards, especially in
regard to leachate recovery and treatment, and out of those 49% of them were declared to be harmful
to the environment and were supposed to be shut down as quickly as possible. It is estimated that in
2009 60% of collected waste was buried in compliance with prevailing health and safety standards,
which shown that there is a big challenge with using landfills as the major treatment method (Albrecht,
Hocquard and Papin 2010).
There is a big demand for new approaches to the treatment of solid waste, and the public authorities
have come to realise that once the landfills are full, extending their lifespan or creating new landfills is
not a long term plan, since it is difficult finding the space and ensuring safe conditions. The authorities
have come to realise that the time is to apply modern technology to the future treatment of solid waste.
There are different initiatives in the bigger cities of Vietnam, one in Hanoi focusing on incineration for
energy recovery, is partly funded by and in cooperation with Japan (Waste Management World 2011)
(Vietnews 2010).
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Figure 1 Overview of environmental problems related to solid waste management in Hanoi
Household solid waste
Collected by the
informal sector
Collected by URENCO
Waste buyers
Nam Soc landfill
GH
GHG emissions
Craft villages
Air pollution
Soil
pollution
Leachate to ground
water + soil
Water
pollution
Jensen 2011, adopted from (United Nations Centre for Regional Development 2010)
Household solid waste creates a range of different challenges, whether collected by the informal sector
or collected by the municipality. The biggest problems are in relation to the landfills, where the waste
emits green house gasses, methane and leaks into the ground, polluting soil and groundwater. In the
craft villages around Hanoi, where the waste is being recycled into new products as the final step of the
recycling chain, the treatment methods do not comply with standards and policies, and there is a risk of
environmental degradation of the surrounding environment, including air-, soil and water pollution.
Hanoi is one of the only bigger Asian cities that does not offer municipal on-site collection service for
household waste recycling. This service is provided by the informal waste recovery sector that buys and
collects recyclable materials and make out Hanoi’s recycling industry by collecting, processing and
selling recyclable materials (DiGregorio, et al. 1998). The informal sector refers to waste collectors,
waste intermediaries, waste pickers and waste buyers, who are involved in collecting, selling and buying
waste completely independently of the municipal solid waste management. Their work is beneficial for
both the municipality and the citizens, because the sector contributes to an environmental service and
reduces the amount of waste that needs to be disposed of. In a more social aspect, it also provides some
of the poorer groups in the society with an income and supports their livelihood.
In order to be able to provide this environmental service to the citizens and strive for more pollution
control, the municipality can take on different approaches. The formal waste sector often has a negative
attitude towards the informal recycling, looking upon it as being backward, unhygienic and generally
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incompatible with a modern waste management system. Besides, it is considered an embarrassment to
a communist society that people rely on other peoples’ waste for a livelihood and the fact that the state
cannot take care of this satisfactorily to the wellbeing of society.
One of the goals in modern waste management is to move ‘up the waste hierarchy,’ i.e. to reduce the
reliance on disposal and increase recycling, thus it would seem as going backwards if eliminating the
existing recycling system, instead of e.g. improving it or coordinate it with the municipal work(Wilson,
Velis and Cheeseman 2006).
Studies show that there is a potential in including the informal sector in the solid waste management.
This can be an advantage because the group has useful resources, such as knowledge on how and what
to collect including contacts to local households (Unit, Urban Development Sector 1999) (DiGregorio, et
al. 1998).
In 2008, the average recycling done by the informal sector returned about 220 tons of materials/day
into production, which is usually composed of paper, scrap metals, plastic and glass. The expanded
economy in Vietnam and especially Hanoi, entails that more goods are being consumed, which creates
more products to recycle and thus more demand for the recycled products. This synergy of demand and
supply has prompted that almost all of the recyclable materials of Hanoi are actually being recycled and
goes into a production stream (DiGregorio, et al. 1998). In 1996, a survey of the informal sector in Hanoi
estimated that 18% - 22% percent of all waste was being taken from the landfill by the informal
recyclers, and since estimations said that around 1.4 million tons of waste were produced in Hanoi every
year, savings on disposal costs from recycling currently ranged from VND 38 billion to 47 billion (World
Bank, MONRE, CIDA 2004).
The amount does not include direct transfers of materials between producers, but it reduces the
amount of waste that needs to be transported and treated by about 1/4. This both saves landfill space,
as well as transforms the composition of the waste stream and the fractions in the municipally collected
waste, so that waste arriving in the Nam Soc landfill is mostly organic and inert materials, numbers from
2008 estimate it to be about 85 percent by weight, which could make large-scale municipal composting
possible and thereby bring a new dimension to waste treatment in Hanoi (DiGregorio, et al. 1998).
The municipal solid waste system does not involve the informal waste recovery industry in the solid
waste management, which can cause problems for their livelihood and environmental degradation to
the urban areas.
There are examples from the past that the municipality has collected recyclable waste and taken work
from parts of the informal waste recovery industry, despite of the fact that this task usually is for the
informal waste recovery industry to rely on for an income. This is not practised widely, but is an example
of the disregard there is towards the informal waste recovery sector (Richardson 2003) (Mitchell 2009).
In 2009, The Vietnamese Government published The National Strategy of Integrated Solid Waste
Management up to 2025, Vision Towards 2050. This is a very ambitious strategy, which has not been
published by August 2011.
In the strategy, there is a specific target for 2015 concerning household waste, which is that ..”85% of
the total solid wastes from households in urban area will be collected and treated in an environmentally
manner, of which 60% will be recycled, reused, recovered energy or produced organic fertilizer”. In the
goals for 2020 and 2025, the waste amounts to be recycled, reused, recovered for energy or produced
organic fertilizer, are even higher. The objectives for 2025 are, among other things that “100% of urban
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areas will have solid waste recycling systems and implement sorting at household and that 100% of total
generated urban waste will be collected and treated, in which 85% will be recycled, reused, recovered
energy or produced into compost and that 100% in craft villages will be collected and treated” (Ministry
of Natural Resources; Ministry of Construction 2009).
It must be anticipated that once there is a shift in how the formal sector regards waste, as soon as the
formal waste sector realizes the potential value of the waste, they will probably modernise the solid
waste system and exclude the informal sector from taking part of it.
Study objective
The objective of this study is to explore the link between the municipal solid waste management and the
informal waste recovery industry. The informal waste recovery sector is providing the urban districts of
Hanoi with an important environmental service by recycling big amounts of the household’s solid waste.
The overall municipal solid waste management goal is to collect more waste and to have more waste
recycled, thereby sending less waste to the landfill. This is a part of an overall goal as part of climate
change mitigation, since the waste at the landfill emits methane and other GHGs into the atmosphere.
The Vietnamese Government established The Environmental Protection Policy, where the 3Rs are
important; Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. In the National Environmental Strategy, the government set up a
target of collecting 100 % and recycling 30 % of all domestic waste by 2020.
This thesis has a descriptive approach and the focus is on the mapping of the municipal approach to the
informal waste recovery sector. Since the informal waste recovery sector is collecting and recycling big
amounts of the recyclable waste in Hanoi and reducing the amounts to landfill by approx. 20 % (D. N.
Thang 2011) the thesis is investigating the barriers for the municipality not to include the informal
sector in its solid waste management.
The above introduction leads to this research question:
What are the barriers in the municipal approach to the informal waste recovery sector in the solid waste
management system in Hanoi?
This thesis has a descriptive approach towards to how decision makers view and approach the informal
waste recovery industry in Hanoi and which barriers are present in this process. The future solid waste
management projects can possibly be a collaboration between a municipal authority and an
international donor, and the thesis provides a notion of the current situation and how future initiatives
will possibly approach the informal sector. The purpose of the thesis is also to give an insight into how
decision-makers in the solid waste management area look upon and approach the informal waste
recovery sector in initiating a reformation of the solid waste management system in Hanoi and secure a
sustainable solid waste management. The benefits from this should preferably be better social
conditions for the informal waste recovery industry and a higher rate of collected and recycled waste
and thereby less environmental damage. The focus is on recognition of the sector, its work and actual
contributions to the overall municipal solid waste management goal, but also on cooperation with the
sector in a longer perspective to secure a sustainable solid waste management, seen from a top-down
perspective, since implementation are in the hands of institutional decision-makers.
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The project will be based on both quantitative data, and qualitative data, namely interviews with
relevant stakeholders.
Table 1 Working Questions
Question/Objective
1. How is the informal
waste recovery industry
working?
Sub questions
Method/data
Who is a part of the informal waste recovery Literature studies
industry?
What kind of waste do they collect?
Interviews
What do they do with the waste?
Who do they cooperate with?
2. How is the current What are the tasks of URENCO?
municipal solid waste How does URENCO collect the waste?
management system?
What is the municipal approach to SWM?
Who are the stakeholders in the current solid
waste management?
Have there been any projects that included the
informal waste recovery sector?
3. How
does
the What plans has the municipality set up?
municipality plan to Does the plan include the informal sector?
reach the goal of Why and why not?
collecting 100 % of the
waste in Hanoi by
2025?
4. How is the future solid Are there going to be any projects that approach
waste
management the informal waste recovery sector?
going to be in Hanoi?
Who will the important stakeholders be?
How will the cooperation between the
stakeholders and the informal waste sector be?
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Literature study
Interviews
Literature study
Interviews
Literature Study
Interviews
Methodology
This chapter describes the methods used in this study to obtain the information and the data needed to
answer the research question and the context for studying this subject. In order to facilitate the process
of gathering information, some methods have been applied. The purpose of this presentation is to
explain how the issues related to the objectives and the research question have been handled and
addressed through the study.
In relation to the study, interviews have been conducted; the considerations and background for these
are presented in this chapter. Considerations about other research methods, reflections on the context
of the study and delimitation are also presented, in order to provide an understanding of the specific
focal issues and how the knowledge leading to answering the research question has been addressed and
what has influenced the process.
Literature study
The conducted literature review has been broad and has included articles and reports about Asia, solid
waste management, the informal waste sector in a global perspective and more specific literature on
the situation of solid waste management in Vietnam and Hanoi, as a foundation for the entire thesis.
Since waste management, the situation in Hanoi and the informal sector are issues that change rapidly,
it has been important to use rather new material and the qualitative, secondary data in the study is
therefore mainly scientific articles from journals, official reports and university reports. The purpose of
this wide literature review has been to provide an overview of the different elements related to waste
management in Hanoi, in relevance to the focal issues which provide the framework for understanding
and studying the qualitative empirical data; the semi-structured interviews.
Semi-structured interviews
The method for primary research in the thesis is qualitative semi-structured interviews. The semistructured interview is chosen in order to maintain openness in the interview situation, while having
structured the interview beforehand. In this way, the prospect of it staying within the focus is higher,
but still with the possibility of opening up to new aspects while in the interview situation. Before the
interview, an interview guide with thematic questions has been prepared (Bryman 2004, 113). I have
strived to design the questions in the interview guide as open and objective as possible, to prepare the
ground for opening new dimensions to the focal areas and maintain my descriptive approach.
Furthermore, the interview guide is also designed so it is possible to change the order of the questions
and also ask additional questions, in response to the answer given by the informant.
The interviews are important to the thesis; it is through these that the specific knowledge on the ideas
and notions behind the current solid waste management can be studied. The literature reviews form the
basis of the background, the context, while the interviews deals with the specific case, and thus draws
on the background literature in order to point out the features of the studied subject.
I have chosen to make summaries of the interviews, with extractions of the points and the informants’
meaning. This is due to the language barriers, and as the interviewer, the mood and underlying
15
information in the interview are important, when it is being conducted in a language neither native to
the informant nor the interviewer. In some cases, it has been necessary to ask follow-up questions to
the informants via email correspondence.
I have gone through the seven phases of an interview study, defined by S. Kvale, to prepare, to execute
and to handle the interviews in order to obtain an optimal gain from the interviews as a methodological
approach.
1. The first phase began before the interviews; here I formulated the purpose of the interview
study and the perception of the theme to be investigated. In this phase I asked the questions
how and why to help establish the overall themes.
2. In the second phase I designed the interview so it considered all seven phases.
3. The third phase is the interview itself, which is based on the interview guide.
4. In the fourth phase I prepared the interviews for analysis by transforming the interview from
spoken language to written language in summaries.
5. The analysis is the fifth phase, where I decided on using interpretation of meaning as the
method for analysing the interviews. This means that I go beyond what the informants say and
try to seek the underlying point. (Kvale and Svend 2008, 230) This is especially helpful when
there is a language barrier, since the interview is taking place in a closed location, and therefore
it is possible to understand more than what is actually said.
6. The second last phase is verification, where the investigation was if the analysis of the
interviews has provided the wanted answers and how valid the answers actually are to draw an
example from.
7. The last phase is the reporting, where the results are used in the thesis (Kvale and Svend 2008,
122).
Informants
Getting hold of the suitable informants for this thesis has been a long and difficult process. A Canadian
researcher, Carrie Mitchell, who in 2009 finished her Ph.D. on the informal waste recovery sector in
Hanoi, recommended me to contact her previous research assistant, Ms. Giang. After explaining the
focus of the thesis with Ms. Giang, I was provided with a list of suitable informants. Dr. Sinh from
NISTPASS verified that these were the suitable informants for my thesis. The list contained of seven
contacts, all of them in quite high positions in each of their organisations.
In Vietnam, there are some cultural practices that need to be respected, and this resulted in a delay in
the response from informants and collaborators and some have not responded. To be able to reach the
informants relevant for the thesis and to get a positive response from them, I had to create a network.
As some informants demanded a bureaucratic form of contact, I had to contact certain people to vouch
for me before getting into contact with the actual informant, and reaching the correct person for this
task turned out to be a slow process. In other cases, a certain form of contact was necessary, namely an
official letter or an official email from a person suited for establishing the contact who introduced me to
the informant.
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Two semi-structured interviews have been completed, namely with:
Vice Manager Ms. Luong thi Mai Huong from the International Cooperation Department in URENCO,
Hanoi Urban Environmental Company
and
Vice Director Dr. Nguyen Trung Thang from ISPONRE, Institute on Strategy and Policy on Natural
Resources and the Environment.
Ms. Huong represents the Hanoi URENCO, the more formal municipal solid waste management. She has
a very high position in the company and her answers to the interview questions represent the current
and official solid waste management, with a focus on economically sustainable solid waste
management.
Dr. Thang is the vice director of ISPONRE, which is a form of ‘think tank’ to the Ministry of Natural
Resources and the Environment, which is a big actor in solid waste management in Hanoi. Dr. Thang
represents a more forward-looking, environmentally sustainable view on solid waste management.
Overall, the questions regarded the informants view on the current solid waste management, the
stakeholders in the current waste management, the official approach to the informal sector, the
relationship between the different stakeholders, how the cooperation between the stakeholders
affected the solid waste management, the JICA 3R HN Project and the National Strategy on Integrated
Solid Waste Management.
When only being able to obtain two interviews to form the qualitative empirical data, it is a positive
aspect that these two represent such different views upon the municipal solid waste management in
Hanoi.
Reflections on the context of the study
The study has taken place in Hanoi, and the author has been based at The National Institute for Science
and Technology, Policy and Strategy Studies, NISTPASS, for a period of 14 weeks in the fall of 2011.
Due to constraints in time, language skills and lack of other resources, the basis of the thesis consists of
previous studies and literature. On the foundation of that sort of quantitative data, more qualitative
empirical data have been gathered, in the form of semi-structured interviews with actors representing
institutional decision makers.
Although the initial idea included a bottom-up approach, such as having an informal sector perspective, I
quickly came to realise that being an ‘outsider’ with limited time, would force me to have a more topdown approach, as in seeing it from the decision makers perspective. I understand now that this fits into
the culture and that the bottom-up approach would be forced upon the subject. Besides, any change in
conditions and approaches comes from top-down and therefore it is relevant to approach the studies
subject by interviewing decision-makers and not practitioners themselves.
My understanding of the conditions of the informal waste recovery industry has been influenced by
different sources; literature, observations from daily life, The Trash Collector – Village People in the City
17
1
documentary and general communication with Vietnamese friends and citizens of Hanoi. Together
these sources have formed a picture of the informal waste recovery sector and the resentment that the
citizens of Hanoi feel against them. Like all other subjects that have aspects of taboo, talking about it
openly tends to change the discourse towards it.
I have strived to have a practical approach to the focal issue and to meet both the subject and the
informants with an open-mind. Still, due to my background and the fact that I am not Vietnamese, there
are some more or less invisible hurdles that are difficult to overcome. I have tried my best to understand
the mentality that is related to the solid waste management system, the communities that handle the
waste, in relation to both households and the informal waste recovery sector. The culture that
surrounds waste behaviour, both in terms of community behaviour and municipal behaviour are
complex, and especially the correlation between the municipality and the informal waste recovery
sector. The literature on waste in Vietnam and on the informal waste recovery sector is mainly by nonVietnamese authors, and there is a general tendency to put a western view on the people and the
municipal behaviour, seeing the Vietnamese government as a machine suppressing the victims in the
informal sector, maintaining them in poverty.
The replies that I received from my enquiry on email and the information I gained through my
interviews should be seen in the light of my role, and the fact that the information given to me is what
the informants expect that a person like me would like to hear. This is a culture that is difficult to
change, and I am aware that my results are also influenced by this.
Delimitation
This thesis examines the municipal approach to the informal waste recovery sector, and does not
include the next phase of the solid waste handling, namely the treatment. The current treatment of the
solid waste in the urban areas of Hanoi is facing a series of challenges, and the solid waste management
treatment should undergo severe changes and improvements in order to undertake the future amounts
of waste in a hygienic, environmentally sustainable and cost-effective manner. This is too big a subject
to commence on studying in this thesis. One of the main arguments for the chosen focus in this study is
that it is important to collect all the waste, in order for it even to be treated, which is also in line with
the municipal goal. This thesis should contribute to a better understanding of the current solid waste
management situation in the urban areas of Hanoi and provide a basis for understanding how the
municipality is approaching the informal waste recovery industry and thereby underscore the potentials
of including the informal waste recovery industry in the municipal solid waste management.
There are several types of solid waste, and this thesis studies the household’s solid waste, since this is
the product that the informal waste recovery sector is working with, and also given that waste from
household make out the biggest amounts of solid wastes in Hanoi.
1
The Trash Collector – Village People in the City, a short documentary, was shown in The Hanoi Cinemateque in
November as a part of ’Tales in the City – Community Voices’ project presented by The Vietnam Museum of
Etnology, with the purpose of showing the life of minority groups to the public. The movie was supported by an
exhibition in the museum.
18
There is a minimum of numbers in this report, which the result of a range of things. Unfortunately there
is a shortage of reliable data, which is due to the fact that there is a number of insecurities and
divergences in the numbers found in different reports and from different sources.
Most studies that include calculation on numbers of waste- related issues in Hanoi, such as numbers of
people in the informal sector, different amounts of waste fractions, municipally collected waste etc., are
from different years and do not estimate the same things, and sometimes industrial waste and hospital
waste are mixed, so it is difficult to get a proper confirmation of numbers. Furthermore, there is a high
variety in numbers from different scientific sources. The data from URENCO are very subjective, seeing
that they have an interest in showing as high numbers as possible in their collection rate, and given that
they are paid according to the amounts of collected waste (Giang 2011). Therefore, most numbers used
in the thesis are approximate numbers and should be read as estimations.
19
Theoretical Approach
The theoretical approach to the subject studied in this thesis is institutional theory, stakeholder theory
and ladder of citizen participation. These theories are chosen as methods to support and explain the
empirical data behind the investigated issue, in order to describe the underlying reasons for the
relationship between the municipality and the informal waste recovery sector.
Institutional theory
In the institutions lies a range of norms, rules and beliefs, these are imbedded in the way the institutions
act towards issues that they deal with. In the context of this study, the institution is the Vietnamese
Government namely the governmental organisations who are in the decision makers in solid waste
management in Hanoi. It is important to look at the institutional effects on the behaviour of the
stakeholders to understand the course of the process and the current solid waste management.
Typically, institutions are also affected by the stakeholders, but in some instances, that is not the case.
Actors are highly influenced by the norms and rules in society, which are laid down by the government
who historically and culturally have defined the system and the development of the society (Scott 2004).
One thing is talking about institutions, another thing is institutional leadership, where decision-makers
in the government carry on and implement the norms, rules and beliefs that are consolidated in the
institution. The role of a decision-maker is to act in continuation of the institution. This is even if there is
a range of stakeholders of which their demands and wellbeing are important in relation to creating a
sustainable society, but does not fall under the norms of the institution.
Stakeholder theory
Stakeholder theory is chosen because in the focal issue, the solid waste management in Hanoi, there are
a lot of stakeholders. These stakeholders are people, individuals and organisations who are affected by
or affecting the solid waste management and have an interest in good waste management, making
them relevant to include in the future work with the municipal solid waste management. In solid waste,
and especially solid waste in the urban areas of Hanoi, it is obvious to include a range of stakeholders,
and in the current solid waste management, one of the stakeholders, namely the informal waste
recovery sector, is not being addressed.
The informal waste recovery sector consist of different groups, but in this thesis they are being
addressed as one stakeholder, since none of these groups are being approached in the municipal solid
waste management. Even though the different groups are diverse and consist of different people with
different demands and work tasks, they are interrelated since they are in the business to support their
livelihood and are a part of a whole system of pickers, collectors and buyers, who are dependant of each
other.
By including stakeholder theory in this thesis, the background notion of including all stakeholders in
order to be more successful, is being underlined. Engaging the stakeholders into involvement and
20
participation entails a stakeholder analysis with an identification of stakeholders in the solid waste
system, study their characteristics, abilities, demands and how they are affecting and being affected,
both positively and negatively, the municipal solid waste system in Hanoi. The municipality is neglecting
a majority of the stakeholders in the solid waste management, and according to stakeholder theory, the
essence is finding out what role the different stakeholders play to find out what role they could play.
Being a stakeholder means to have a stake, as in an interest and when the municipality is approaching
and engaging their stakeholders, it gives them a form of legitimacy and thus they can be mobilised into
playing a part (Kurian 2005).
In this case, the informal waste sector as a stakeholder, is both affected by the current solid waste
management and will be affected by the future one, and is also possibly a part of the solution towards a
more sustainable society.
The definition of stakeholders is, according to R. Edward Freeman:
“A stakeholder in an organisation is (by definition) any group or individual who can affect or is affected
by the achievement of the organisation’s objective” (Freeman, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder
Approach 2010).
A more specific definition is any individual or group who:
•Helps to define the organization, its mission, purpose, or its goals
and/or
•Is vital to the development, functioning, survival, and success or wellbeing of the organization and its
activities
or
•Is most affected by the organization and its activities
(Werhane and Freeman 1999)
Stakeholder theory originated in business management, but because of its general character, I believe
that it can be used in relation to institutions and organisations as well. As J. Kurian states in his article
‘Stakeholder participation for sustainable waste management’: “This paper highlights the fact that the
involvement and participation of all the stakeholders such as the waste generators, waste processors,
formal and informal agencies, non-governmental organisations and financing institutions is a key factor
for the sustainable waste management”.
In Freeman’s definition, a business’ stakeholders are narrowed down to those groups who are
influential, in one way or another, to the business’ wellbeing. The stakeholders should as a minimum
include employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers and communities (Friedman and Miles 2006). To
make it relevant to this thesis, the stakeholders that the municipality should consider in the making of
future integrated municipal solid waste management, should consist of the different governmental
institutions, the employees in URENCO Hanoi, the foreign donors, the citizens, the communities, the
NGO’s, the community based organisations and the informal waste recovery sector.
21
Organisations often have a wide range of stakeholders and the stakeholders have very different
interests and relations to the businesses. Therefore it may be difficult for a business to identify which
stakeholders they need to engage with and how to do it. It is important for a company to identify and
prioritise its different stakeholders in relation to the ones that are mostly affected by the company and
the ones the company is mostly affected by.
Stakeholders play an important part of solid waste management. Creating a sustainable solid waste
management system in Hanoi is about creating a safe and healthy environment for the citizens and the
surrounding society. Stakeholders are any group or individual who can affect or be affected by a
company’s purpose. The point of departure in this study is the municipal approach to the informal waste
recovery sector, and the stakeholder theory is about the relationship of an organisation to its
stakeholders, thus the municipality of Hanoi is seen as an ‘organisation’ in relation to stakeholder
theory, but it is approached and referred to in general as an institution. When stakeholders go together,
they can create something that none of them can create on their own. That is why it is important,
especially in a complex field as solid waste management, to identify and approach all relevant
stakeholders. The field of solid waste management in the urban parts of Hanoi consists of all kinds of
stakeholders, since it regards all kinds of people, organisations and institutions. In this study, the
government and the municipality are seen as one organisation. If a group can affect the organisation,
then the organisation needs to deal with it, in this case the informal waste recovery sector has an effect
on the municipal solid waste management, and therefore the municipality needs to deal with them.
Thinking about and approaching stakeholders is a way of thinking about the organisation as a unit that
affects its surroundings (Freeman n.d.).
Stakeholder theory is the idea that each one of the stakeholder groups is important for the success of
the business, i.e. important for the success of the Vietnamese Government in creating a sustainable
society, as in a society where all stakeholders are considered in the solid waste management (Freeman
n.d.).
There are different levels of stakeholders, and there are different ways of differentiating the
stakeholders, how you divide the stakeholders is dependant of how you approach your value creation in
the organisation. If the organisation only focuses on one aspect, it will miss the interaction between the
different stakeholders which can contribute to a holistic, successful objective (Freeman n.d.).
The value creation is important to make sure that the interests of different stakeholders go in the same
direction and that there are no conflicts between the different stakeholders. It is important for the
municipality to create value for all of the stakeholders, and investigating the interest for all the
stakeholders is a way to create value and work towards a goal that benefits all. By looking at
intersections of the interests and maybe look at the need of certain stakeholders which might conflict
with the society and looking at issues that they do not usually look at, is where value can be created
(Freeman n.d.).
By excluding one or more stakeholders, the organisation is not approaching its value-creation
holistically, and the outcome will not be a complete success, since some aspects of the purpose of the
company have not been considered in its management approach.
22
J. Kurian has in 2005 set up a list of stakeholders for sustainable waste management, where the role of
the municipality as a stakeholder is to:
• Keep waste management in priority
• Provide infrastructural inputs and services
• Have a definite organizational setup with trained staff
• Implement legislation and punish violators
• Compliment public/private participation
• Enlist informal sector participation
• Maintain an up-to-date database
(Kurian 2005)
Kurian also set up the public, city planners, NGO’s, academia, senior citizens, youth, students,
vendors/shop owners, hospitals and corporations on the list of stakeholders, and it is quite surprising
that the municipalities are not approaching or even identifying many of these stakeholders. In an
example used later in this thesis, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, a foreign aid
organisation, are making a project with the Hanoi URENCO and actually approaching more stakeholders
than the governmental agencies, which is the actual decision-makers regarding solid waste
management.
The role of the municipality is among other things to enlist informal sector participation thus meaning,
approaching the informal sector as a stakeholder, and as he puts it “The key precondition for successfully
developing stakeholder participation is the political interest and will of the city leaders” (Kurian 2005, 8)
This means that the municipality as an institution with the responsibility of ensuring a sustainable waste
management and ensuring that the objective of an effort and participation of all key stakeholders are
planned (Kurian 2005)
It is obvious that the informal waste recovery sector is difficult to engage and approach because of e.g.
practical issues, since it consist of different groups and some of the groups do not have a fixed working
hours or places. But stakeholder theory is also relevant here, since other stakeholders role could be to
engage the sector, but there is a need for investigating the resources of these stakeholders to check the
optimal ground for cooperation.
Ladder of citizen participation
The theory of ladder participation is about “the redistribution of power that enables the have-not
citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic processes, to be deliberately included in the
future. It is the strategy by which the have-nots join in determining how information is shared, goals and
policies are set, tax resources are allocated, programs are operated, and benefits like contracts and
patronage are parcelled out. In short, it is the means by which they can induce significant social reform
which enables them to share in the benefits of the affluent society” (Arnstein 2007, 2).
An important notion in the theory is regarding the real power to affect the outcome of a process, and
not participate in an empty ritual, but actually having influence and create ownership towards a subject
and a process.
23
An explanation of the different levels of participation should underline the idea that citizen participation
is important in a process.
Figure 2 Types of participation and non-participation:
(Arnstein 2007, 3)
“A typology of eight levels of participation is created in the theory to support an analysis of the level of
citizen participation. The eight types of citizen participation are arranged in a ladder, with each step
corresponding to the extent of citizens’ power in determining the end product. The bottom steps of the
ladder are
1: Manipulation and 2: Therapy. These two steps describe levels of “non-participation” which can
sometimes be mistaken for genuine participation. The real objective in this form of citizen participation is
actually not to enable people to participate in planning or carry out programs, but to enable powerholders to ‘educate’ or ‘cure’ the participants.
Step 3 and 4 move to levels of ‘tokenism’, i.e. symbol gestures, which allow the have-nots to hear and to
have a voice:
3: Informing and 4: Consultation. When power-holders offer this as the extent of participation, there is
a chance that citizens may hear and be heard. But under these conditions they lack the power to insure
that their views will be noticed by the powerful, when participation is restricted to these levels, there is
no follow through, and thus, at this stage no assurance that the power given to the citizens can actually
help change status quo. Informing citizens of their rights, responsibilities, and options can be the most
important first step in reaching true citizen participation. Inviting citizens’ opinions, like informing them,
can be a step toward their full participation. At the same time, if consulting them is not combined with
other modes of participation, this rung of the ladder is still a sham since it offers no assurance that
24
citizen concerns and citizen ideas will be taken into account. Examples of the most frequent methods
used for consulting people are attitude surveys, neighbourhood meetings, and public hearings, which
then need to be combined with another method of interaction to become genuine participation.
Step 5: Placation is a higher level of tokenism because the ground rules allow have-nots to advise, but
maintain a continued right to decide for the power-holders. Further up the ladder are levels of citizen
power with increasing degrees of decision-making influence. It is at this level that citizens begin to have
some degree of influence, even though tokenism is still apparent.
Citizens can enter into a 6: Partnership that enables them to negotiate and engage in trade-offs with
traditional power-holders. At this step on the ladder, power is redistributed through negotiation between
citizens and power-holders. Here, they agree to share planning and decision-making responsibilities
through processes such as joint policy boards, planning committees and mechanisms for resolving
impasses. After establishing common ground rules, through some form of give-and-take, they
are not subject to unilateral change. A partnership can work most effectively when there is an organized
power-base in the community where the citizen leaders are accountable. Also when the citizens group
has the financial resources to pay its leaders reasonable honoraria for their time-consuming efforts and
when
the group has the resources to hire and fire its own technicians, lawyers, and community organizers.
With
these ingredients, citizens have some genuine bargaining influence over the outcome of the plan (as long
as both parties find it useful to maintain the partnership). In cases where power has come to be shared,
it is because the power was taken by the citizens, not given by the city.
At the top step, 7: Delegated Power, negotiations between citizens and public officials can also result in
citizens achieving dominant decision making authority over a particular plan or program. At this level,
the
ladder has been scaled to the point where citizens hold the significant cards to assure accountability of
the program to them.
In step 8: Citizen Control, the have-not citizens obtain the majority of decision-making seats, or full
managerial power. Though no one in the nation has absolute control, it is very important that the
rhetoric is not confused with intent. People are simply demanding that degree of power (or control)
which guarantees that participants or residents can govern a program or an institution, be in full charge
of policy and managerial aspects, and be able to negotiate the conditions under which ‘outsiders’ may
change them”
(Arnstein 2007, 3).
A society consists of different groups, citizens do not have the same resources, and the theory suggests
that in the well-being of a society it is important to create empowerment within citizen groups and
individuals. In the context of a society, with an institution as the main power-holder, there are some
barriers towards citizen participation, in terms of e.g. resistance to power distribution etc.
25
See chapter on Barriers in the Municipal Approach for further explanation of the graduations of citizen
participation, in relation to defining and approaching stakeholders in an institutional context, in
connection with the studied subject.
Stakeholders, participation and institutions
The theoretical approach and the general point of departure for the discussion and the analysis is a
combination of the three theories, institutional theory, stakeholder theory and ladder of citizen
participation. Based on the notions in the theories, the reason for the municipal approach to the
informal waste recovery sector lies within the idea about the municipality as an elongation of the
institution and its structures. The municipality is continuing and passing on the culture regarding the
informal waste sector which lies within the governmental institution. In some cases, the sector is
disparaged, but mostly it is not being mentioned at all. According to the stakeholder theory, it is
important for the municipality to approach and include all of its stakeholders in its solid waste
management in order to succeed. This includes the informal waste recovery sector. But seen from a
bottom-up perspective, the sector as a part of a citizen group should be addressed and included on one
of the top-levels of the ladder of citizen participation, ideally according to the context, in a partnership.
The stakeholder theory as well as the ladder of citizen participation deals with legitimacy, and the
stakeholder theory is a way of approaching the informal sector in a way that prompts for investigating
its characteristics, role, abilities and influence in relation to the municipal solid waste management. The
ladder of citizen participation puts forward an index into which the means of cooperation can be
determined on a scale, which seen from a stakeholder theory point of view should be somewhere in
between Consultation and Partnership in the institutions approach to the informal sector. These notions
are an ideal approach to the sector, which probably does not comply with the fact that the
governmental agencies in charge of solid waste management is very much an institution with a culture
characterised by a top-down, excluding approach to decision making.
26
Background
The following chapter describes the background for understanding the solid waste situation and the
management system in Hanoi. The chapter starts with a short section on the context, to provide a short
overview of the general conditions in Vietnam. This is followed up by a section on the institutional
system, which is important to understand in order to study the underlying culture and responsibilities
that lie in the approach in decision-making regarding the informal waste recovery sector. After this,
there is a section on solid waste management in Hanoi, which explains the practicalities in the waste
system. Thereafter followed up by a section on the informal waste recovery industry and plus the
challenges within the current system.
Context
Overview of Vietnam
Geography
Vietnam is a Socialist and Communist Republic in South-East Asia, bordering Laos and Cambodia to the
West, China to the North, the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China to the East. The total land area is
331,210 square km and it is extending 1,650 km from the north to the south. It consists of 58 provinces
and 5 municipalities. The climate is characterized with being tropical in the south and monsoonal in the
north, with a hot, rainy season from May to September and a warm, dry season from October to March.
(CIA 2010) Vietnam’s main rivers are the Red River in the north and the Mekong River in the south.
(Asian Productivity Organisation 2007)
Demographics
As by summer 2011, the population is estimated to be 90.549,390 people and ranks as the 14th most
populated country in the world. Ho Chi Minh in the south is the largest city with 5,976 million citizens,
while Hanoi in the northern part of the country is the capital with 2,668 million citizens. It is in 2010
estimated that 30 % of the Vietnamese people live in cities, and this number is continuously increasing
(CIA 2010).
Governance
Vietnam is a Socialist and Communist country, and the government is divided into four levels of
administration: the national level, the provincial level and urban authorities. The country consists of 64
provinces and 4 urban authorities, namely Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, and Da Nang. Urban
precincts and rural districts, and urban wards and rural communes make out 2,366 wards and 8,859
27
communes. Each commune contains five villages. Every level of administration has an executive branch
and a People’s Committee, a legislative branch and a People’s Council.
Economy
Vietnam is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranging worldwide as number 166 in GDP per
capita of just 2,700 dollars, even though the incomes has become significantly higher in the recent
years.
Agriculture, industry and service sectors form the base of the Vietnamese economy. While
the industry and service sectors provide larger contributions to the GDP, agriculture still remains
as the main occupation, employing 63% of the labour force. Agricultural products include rice,
corn, potatoes, and rubber. Food processing, garments, shoe making, and machine-building are
the major industries (Asian Productivity Organisation 2007).
In 1986, the Government introduced the Doi Moi, reforms where market oriented approach took over
from centrally planned economy. This was a try to modernize the economy by making market
liberalisation policies. Since this initiative, there has been much direct foreign investment and a
somewhat steady growth (CIA 2010).
Environment
The growing urban industrialization and migration put pressure on the infrastructure in the bigger cities,
such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, causing among others, air- waste- and ground pollution. Pollution of
the ground limits clean water supplies, which will be a big challenge in the future. Vietnam is estimated
to be one of the top-five countries most affected by climate change, partly because of its low-elevation
(ISET 2009) The Mekong Delta in the middle part of Vietnam is estimated to be highly influenced by
climate change because of its low-elevation since predictions say that because of climate changes, there
will be acute disasters with an increase in extreme rainfall and drought, and long term changes such as
rising sea level and warming temperatures. (Oxfam International 2008)
The Institutional Structure in Vietnam
To understand the solid waste management in Hanoi, it is necessary to gain an insight to the
institutional system in Vietnam. The following is a basic explanation of how the system is built and thus
how it operates in relation to solid waste management. Currently, the institutional arrangements
related to the municipal solid waste system are undergoing transformation, and the areas of
responsibility are highly likely to be changed from its current one. This notion has been passed on in an
unofficial manner and no official sources underscore it, but it is highly likely that changes will occur. On
this background, it is difficult to provide a notion about the future areas of authority and involvement
(Giang 2011). Since the system has not been changed officially yet, the following section explains the
situation as it has been up until now, which is referred to as the current system.
Local authorities play an ever more significant role in the development of the country and especially the
urban areas, and they are the ones who are the key actor in the implementation of overall
governmental administrative actions (Albrecht, Hocquard and Papin 2010).
28
In short, the systems works with the central government, executive agent of the National Assembly,
implements the Constitution, directs central ministries and Peoples Committees at the provincial level,
drafts laws and decrees for the National Assembly, and manages duties of the state. Each level of local
administration has an executive arm, the Peoples Committee, and a legislative arm, which is the Peoples
Council. The Peoples Council is elected from the local jurisdiction. The Provincial and District Peoples
Committees include members that are elected by the Peoples Council and also representatives of line
ministries (DANIDA 2009). There are 5 cities under national supervision, which constitute the first local
level of the administrative system in Vietnam (Albrecht, Hocquard and Papin 2010).
An overview of the government and the different ministries’ linkage to waste management is as follows:
Figure 3 The institutional matrix in solid waste management
(Viet, et al. 2009)
29
Throughout Vietnam the government has full authority over environmental protection. The Ministry of
Natural Resources and Environment, MoNRE, has been authorized by the government to implement
state management of environmental protection and nationwide coordination of all environmental
protection
activities.
Several Ministries are directly involved in waste management. The main ministry responsible for solid
waste management is MoNRE, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, its responsibilities are
environment management, monitoring and assessment. In addition to that, five other ministries are
directly involved in waste management activities. These ministries all have a specific role to play
towards waste management. The provincial and municipal governments play key roles in providing solid
waste management services; they consist of Peoples’ Committee, People’s Committee, Department of
Natural Resource and Environment, Department Of Natural Resources and the Environment, and Urban
Environment Company, URENCO.
The Peoples’ Committee is responsible for the state administration at the local level. Its waste
management responsibilities are several, e.g. implementation of state management regulations on
environmental protection in their respective localities, direction of their functional agencies in
organizing, coordinating with the functional agencies of the central level, direction and consultancy for
proper waste management facilities, waste treatment projects in terms of design, construction,
monitoring, etc, and investment and subsidisation for solid waste management and treatment facilities.
The Department of Natural Resource and Environment, DoNRE is an agency of the ministry responsible
for solid waste management, it also operates under the influences of both The Peoples Committee in
terms of administrative and political relations, and MoNRE in terms of collaboration, support, and
technical guidance.
DoNRE plays an important role in waste management with responsibility towards the monitoring of
environmental quality, managing and implementing waste management policies and regulations issued
by the MoNRE and the People’s Committee.
URENCO, an agency of DoNRE or PC, is the main company in charge of waste collection, transport, and
treatment in the province or city. URENCO is also in charge of solid waste collecting, and other related
tasks, namely keeping public places hygienic, public lighting, planting and taking care of trees along the
street (Thanh and Matsui 2011).
The administrative framework
Vietnam has a legal framework for environmental protection which particularly addresses guidelines for
the management and the disposal of waste. This framework is supported by two strategies that focus on
solid waste management:
The Strategy for the Management of Solid Waste in Vietnamese Cities and Industrial Parks from 1999
and
The National Strategy for Environmental Protection from 2003
In addition, the legal system is supported by other relevant laws and policy documents:
Decree No 59/2007/ND-CP of the government promulgating the regulations on the solid waste
management activities, the right and duty of individuals and organisation related to solid waste
management (Thanh and Matsui 2011).
30
In 2009, the National Strategy on Integrated Solid Waste Management from 2009 was published, which
focuses specifically on solid waste management.
Figure 4 Waste management framework for Vietnam
(Sakai, et al. 2011, 4)
The basic legislation for environmental management in Vietnam is the Environmental Protection Law,
which was corrected in 2005 and is superior to other laws concerning waste management. The waste
management system was established under the Decree on Solid Waste Management (2007) that
establishes environmental protection measures for solid waste treatment. This decree covers the overall
waste management policy and prioritizes recycling, reutilization, and treatment and recovery, to
prevent land consumption by landfills. The collection, transport, and treatment of waste are subject to
fees, which are also currently being changed. The National Strategy on Integrated Solid Waste
Management from 2009, until the years of 2025 and 2050 contains the targets for solid waste
management. The midterm strategic target for 2025 is to have separated municipal solid waste. In the
strategy, the focus points are minimizing the amount of final disposable waste by 2050, via collection of
all solid wastes, promotion of 3R policies – reduce, reuse and recycle- and employment of advanced and
environmentally sound techniques (Sakai, et al. 2011).
In the Strategy, there is a number of tasks that are dispersed between the different government
agencies; the Ministry of Construction is to play the main role, in coordination with the Ministry of
Natural Resources and Environment and relating ministries and branches, People’s Committees of the
provinces and cities under the Central Government. The tasks are a coordination of the implementation
of Strategy contents; instructing, guiding and summarizing the results of carrying out Decree No.
59/2007/ND-CP on 09 April 2007 by the Government, on solid waste management. The list of tasks and
the responsible for undertaking these tasks are very detailed in the Strategy and scattered among these
actors. In addition to the above mentioned actors, The Ministry of Planning and Investment, The
Ministry of Finance, The Ministry of Science and Technology, The Ministry of Industry and Commerce
31
and The Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, The Ministry of Information
and Telecommunication and The Ministry of Education and Training also have responsibilities to
perform. (Ministry of Natural Resources; Ministry of Construction 2009)
The list is too comprehensive to include in this section, see Appendix, the National Strategy on
Integrated Solid Waste Management, Article 2: Organization of Strategy Implementation for full list.
32
Solid Waste Management in Hanoi
This chapter will provide the background information about how the current solid waste management
system works. The chapter provides an overview of the municipal waste system, and so the next chapter
deals with the informal sector.
Current solid waste management in Hanoi
Hanoi is at the head of a group of entities, local public sector companies that manage local public
services, such as water production and supply, wastewater collection and treatment, transport, cleaning
of public areas and construction. The province appoints their senior managers, sets the tariffs for the
urban services and often meets some of their financial needs. Companies that come under the generic
term of URENCO, Urban Environmental Companies, are public sector companies that are the operational
actors of the city for a certain number of urban services, including waste management (Albrecht,
Hocquard and Papin 2010).
The solid waste management system in Hanoi is mainly being carried out by The Hanoi URENCO, whose
responsibilities are the collection, processing and disposal of waste within Hanoi's six central urban and
nearby suburban districts (DiGregorio, et al. 1998). Generally speaking, the waste itself has no
recognised value to the formal system, and thus becomes a common property (Scheinberg, Anschütz
and van de Klundert 2006). This is also the reason why the informal waste recovery industry can be so
dominant in the waste collection and recycling.
The Hanoi URENCO is a limited liability company 100% owned by the City, under the direct control of the
People’s Committee. It is organised into 8 direct subsidiaries, 6 autonomous subsidiaries, and three
associated companies. URENCO's duties are carried out by a network of eleven interdependent units
organized into four District Environmental Enterprises, two Transport Units, a Nightsoil Collection Unit, a
Street Washing Unit, a Mechanical Workshop, a Composting Plant, and a Landfill Unit. There is an
administrative staff and budget within all of these units, which is partly based on central sources and
partly from local fees or service contracts. URENCO's main headquarters in central Hanoi provides
support and administrative services, as well as other non-waste related services (Di Gregorio 1996). The
diversification of their activities is far from the core environmental activity, for example real estate
business activities. It is a common practice in Vietnam’s public sector companies and provides the way
for URENCO to level their expenses and income (Albrecht, Hocquard and Papin 2010).
From the beginning of the 1990’s during a 5-year period, URENCO succeeded in a constant increase in its
capacity in order to collect Hanoi’s waste. Despite of this, factors such as increasing population,
urbanisation and income growth which had lead to changes in consumer patterns, have made the task
of collecting all of the waste in Hanoi a big challenge. URENCO has managed to increase the amount of
collected waste, but because of an overall increase in generated waste, the uncollected amounts are
fairly stable. The gap between the municipal uncollected and collected waste is somewhat filled by the
recycling of the informal sector. (DiGregorio, et al. 1998)
Estimations say that the URENCO collects 80% of the municipal solid waste, while the informal sector
collects and recycles 15 – 20% (Thang 2011).
33
According to URENCO numbers, the amount of waste in Hanoi in 2007 – 2009 was:
Table 2 Amounts of Municipally Solid Waste generated in Hanoi
(JICA 2011)
According to estimations in the National Strategy on Integrated Solid Waste Management up to 2025
and Vision to 2050, the amounts of municipal and industrial waste are going to be increased in the
future.
Table 3 Estimations of future amounts of waste
(Ministry of Natural Resources; Ministry of Construction 2009)
The waste
There are generally eight different classifications for solid waste; residential, industrial, commercial,
institutional, construction and demolition, municipal services, process, and agricultural wastes. This
thesis focuses on the residential waste, referred to as municipal solid waste since it is typically
categorised as so. The focus in the thesis is on the urban areas of Hanoi, with a focus on solid waste
from households (Unit, Urban Development Sector 1999).
34
Figure 5 Overview of all waste fractions
Vegetables
and plants
Recycle
products
Farm
Collection
Cau Dien
compost
plant
Organic
Waste
Collect and
Transport
Waste
Craft
villages
Daily life
Collect and
transport
waste
Collection
Junk shop
Inorganic
waste
wast
e
Collect
and
transport
astewa
Nam
Son
Landfill
Adopted from (URENCO, URENCO's environmental business on 3R in Hanoi City 2011)
There are 3 different categories of solid waste:
• Inorganic waste; which is waste to landfill that cannot be reused or recycled (orange)
• Recyclable waste; cans, bottles, plastic and metal (purple)
• Organic waste; left-over food, vegetables, fruit (green)
There are 18 companies involved in municipally solid waste collection and transportation in Hanoi.
Hanoi URENCO serves the 4 core areas of the city, Hoan Kiem, Ba Dinh, Hai Ba Trung and Dong Da.
URENCO is a state-owned company, the rest is a combination of joint stock company, co-operative and
state-owned companies. (JICA 2011)
Finding out the different areas of responsibility divided between these companies and URENCO is
difficult, the number I found deal only with URENCO, and it is not easy to see if the numbers also cover
the other companies. The literature and information on the solid waste management in Hanoi is overall
not mentioning the other companies. The focus in the thesis is solely on URENCO, since it is a key actor
according to my informants, who does not mention the private companies as playing a role, and since
the focus is on the central urban districts of Hanoi, where the informal waste sector mainly operate.
35
All the collection and transportation of solid waste in the urban areas of Hanoi is done by URENCO
workers, and Figure X above illustrates how an optimal source separation would look like in a 3R
approach, according to URENCO (URENCO, URENCO's environmental business on 3R in Hanoi City 2011).
Table 4 Municipal solid waste generation in Vietnam
(JICA 2011)
Collection and disposal
Inorganic waste is collected manually from streets and public locations by municipal URENCO workers,
using manual sweeping and loading into handcarts for transport to transfer stations. Solid waste from
households is collected by handcarts or by waste-collection vehicles going through the streets according
to a planned schedule (Asian Productivity Organisation 2007). The households often place their waste in
plastic bags in the gutter outside their houses, so that the URENCO workers can pick it up and transport
it by handcart. Often, the URENCO workers make some noise by hitting on a cowbell to let the
households and shops know that they are collecting waste in the area.
In the urban districts, citizens place their waste in the open gutters of the street in front of their
dwellings for URENCO employees to pick up. The trash is then collected by URENCO workers and
transported by handcarts, which are of various types. When the handcarts are full, they are transported
to a transfer station, where a waste truck transports the waste to the nearest dumpsite or landfill,
where most of the municipally collected waste goes. In places with no transfer points, residents are
provided with a communal container and are responsible for disposing their waste into the containers.
Daily, a URENCO truck unloads the communal container and transports it to the landfill (Thanh and
Matsui 2011), (personal observations).
A couple of sanitary solid waste landfills are currently operating; Nam Son landfill, Kieu Ky and Xuan Son
landfill. In addition, there are Cau Dien, and Son Tay composting plant. All the landfill sites will have
reached their limit by the end of 2012 (Chi 2009), (URENCO, URENCO's environmental business on 3R in
36
Hanoi City 2011). The government is prolonging the life of landfills such as the Nam Soc landfill by
expanding it, so it will be usable for another couple of years (Giang 2011).
Recyclable waste
There are several recycling villages, the craft villages, near Hanoi where aluminium, lead, plastic,
household appliance parts and other items are recycled. In all of Vietnam, there are approx. 2790
recycling villages (URENCO, URENCO; news; domestic environment 2009). The craft villages are the
places that the recyclable waste ends up after being collected by the informal waste sector. In these
villages, in household scale, the waste is being recycled and turned into new products and from there on
sold. The villages are known to pollute the surrounding environment notably.
Organic waste
The informal sector, in the form of the waste collectors, goes through waste at the households, at the
transfer stations and at the landfills, and this means that a large part of non-organic waste is separated
by waste collectors and that the share dumped or land filled by formal companies is largely organic. But
this depends on the efficiency of the households and the informal sector in going through the waste,
separating the recyclable material from organic fractions etc.
Picture 1 The Nam Soc Landfill
The entrance to The Nam Soc Landfill (Jensen 2011)
37
The informal waste recovery industry
All places where there is solid waste, at households, at transfer stations, at the street and at landfills,
the informal waste recovery industry can find materials such as plastic, paper and metals and therefore
this is their workplace.
This chapter provides the background for understanding the informal sector, which tasks it performs
and the general conditions for this.
The background
The informal waste recovery industry in and around Hanoi has been in growth during the last few years,
due to a number of things. Many of the agricultural farmers have experienced a dissolving of their
cooperatives because of a withdrawal from the state, which caused a drop in economy and the collapse
of many cooperatives. These people also need a job because of this decrease in income, the farmers
now need a secondary income, and waste recycling has sometimes shown to be a greater income than
farming. In general, the collection and recycling is stable around the year, but with a small drop during
the preparation of land, planting, weeding and harvesting, which takes up about month all in all, where
they commute to the rural areas (DiGregorio, et al. 1998).
The industry is very flexible since it works according to a supply and demand system, which makes
income level and possible work amounts vary. Sometimes they need to go to a location far away, or they
need to move their otherwise steady location because a construction site is now a finished building, or
they keep the waste for a while to get the best price, since prices on the valuables change from day to
day. These and other factors make this group very flexible; they go where the waste is and where they
can sell at the highest price (DiGregorio, et al. 1998) .
The work
The informal waste recovery industry consists of different groups, who find their recyclables at different
sources, according to their place in the waste hierarchy:
-
Collectors: city-based waste pickers, dumpsite pickers, and junk buyers
Intermediaries: receivers, dumpsite depot operators, and sidewalk depot operators
Dealers
The waste collectors often go from door-to-door, collecting and buying specific recyclable materials
and/or organic wastes from households, which is their primary waste source. Besides, some of them
invest in a vehicle, such as a wheelbarrow or a push-cart. Other sources are shops, construction sites
and transfer sites in Hanoi, and also bins and waste carts, bags of waste thrown on the street and at
landfills. The bins, carts and landfill are all URENCO sources. This group base their entire income on
waste, which they sell to junk buyers (Mitchell 2008). The waste collectors sell their products to sidewalk
38
depot operators, waste intermediaries or specialised junk shops which are spread around the city or,
when dealing with of low-value materials, concentrated in O Cho Dua ward.
The waste pickers/dumpside pickers sort through the waste before it is covered at the landfill. This is
often carried out by communities that live on or near the dump, they sell their waste to the junk buyers
(Wilson, et al. 2009).
Picture 2 Recyclable waste from landfill
Waste pickers’ collected and sorted waste, on the road to the Nam Soc landfill (Jensen 2011)
The waste intermediaries, work as intermediaries between the waste collectors and junk buyers/waste
manufacturers. They fill a gap in the informal waste recovery business of buying, sorting, and housing
the waste that the collectors purchase and/or collect from different sources in Hanoi. The
transportation of recyclable materials to processors and users is either the work of these first level
buyers or the work of traders. Due to the volume of materials they handle, larger traders, who are
better able to arrange for transportation to processors and producers than smaller traders or buyers,
enjoy a speedy turnover rate. Smaller traders and buyers need to hold materials until they are able to
deliver a minimum load, determined by truck size, to producers (DiGregorio, et al. 1998).
The waste collectors could earn more money per kg waste if they also carried out the activities of
intermediaries, but there are some obstacles, such as their temporary existence in the city because of
work and family commitments in their rural villages, lack of start-up capital to finance a new business
venture, and limited social networks which sometimes prevent them from working as waste
intermediaries. Hence the intermediary businesses have flourished in Hanoi, responding to the demand
of collection and place to storage the waste in the city (Mitchell 2009).
39
There are two main types of waste intermediaries working in Hanoi, sidewalk depot operators and fixedlocation waste receivers. Sidewalk depot operators have their business on public sidewalks or on private
property in the city. Typically, it is in the central districts of Hanoi, Hoan Kiem, Ba Dinh, Hai Ba Trung,
and Dong Da, where land and space is expensive. According to Decree 36 CP issued in 1996, this practice
is technically illegal, and so are cyclos and trishaws in the central parts of Hanoi, which has made it close
to impossible for sidewalk depot operators to carry out their business in the city centre.
The sidewalk depot operators therefore often need to establish special financial agreements with local
law enforcement and/or private security guards, or, in other words, pay a bribe (Mitchell 2009).
The fact is that both groups of intermediaries work under uncertain conditions.
Fixed-location waste intermediaries are much more common in Hanoi, either renting, owning or using a
house for their business, operating their businesses out of space on the ground floor of houses, or in
single-storey dwellings. Many waste intermediaries collect different types of waste, including plastics,
paper, and metals, but some prefer instead to specialize in one or two types of waste. Unlike many
waste collectors, who simultaneously buy waste from households and/or businesses and also pick waste
from the street, sidewalk depot operators and fixed-location waste receivers often have this as their
only occupation (Mitchell 2009).
In most cases, the waste collectors travel by bike, but some still only by foot. The collectors on bike can
travel a bigger distance and carry a heavier load, which make them far more flexible and enable them to
earn a higher income.
The waste intermediaries sell their waste to the next hierarchical step, namely specialized small-scale
materials dealers or ‘junk shops’. The junk shops aggregate, pack, and sell the waste in industrial
quantities for export or for domestic manufacturing use at e.g. craft villages (Scheinberg, Anschütz and
van de Klundert 2006) Individual itinerant junk buyers tend to specialise in one or two kinds of materials
(Wilson, et al. 2009).
It is difficult to estimate the number of people which make up the informal waste recovery sector in
Hanoi, the waste collectors, the waste intermediaries and the junk buyers, since the sector is very
mobile, some go back to the rural area because of the shifting seasons in farming, while others seek
towards other parts of the city. In 1992 Di Gregorio estimated the total population of the sector in the 4
urban districts of Hanoi to be 4,800 – 6,000, while in 2006, Mitchell estimated it to be 8,200 people.
Since 1992 and 2006, Hanoi has expanded its area considerably, so that five other districts are now also
a part of the city, making out 22,500 estimated people in the informal waste recovery sector. These
numbers are exclusively on the waste pickers and waste collectors. With point of departure in the 2006
numbers, then 1700 waste intermediaries and an unknown number of waste dealers should be added.
Additional estimations point towards that females are most represented as waste pickers and waste
collector, seeing as 94 % the surveyed waste collectors were women in 2006 (Mitchell 2009).
There are approximately 1.450 craft villages in the 56 provinces in rural Vietnam. 90 % of these are
recycling paper, metals and plastic (JICA 2011).
40
Table 5 Recycling in craft villages
Materials
recycled
Inputs
recycling
production
(tons/year)
to
Products
(tons/year)
25,200
22,900
Plastics
51,700
45,500
Paper
735,000
700,000
Metal
811,900
768,400
Total
Adopted from (World Bank, MONRE, CIDA 2004, 29)
% recycled
90.9
80.0
95.2
94.6
Picture 3 Waste Collector
Still photo from “The Trash Collector – Village People in The City” (Hanoi Grapewine 2011)
Donor assisted solid waste management projects
First, a short section to provide an overview about how Vietnam approaches international donors and
contributions from foreign countries needed to understand the relations that lie within internationally
funded solid waste management projects.
Understanding the relation between the Vietnamese state and international donors is a key to
understanding the development of the country and how this has influenced the planning and the
process of development projects related to solid waste management. History and internal politics within
the Vietnamese government are the key factors to study the objectives and goals of e.g. the JICA 3R HN
project.
After the aid from The Soviet Union ended in the mid 1980’s, the country was in need of a revision of
policies and an economic reform, which resulted in the the Doi Moi in 1986, when the government
opened up for a more market-based economy with more openness towards allowing foreign aid. Some
parts of the government meant that, even though the role of the state was not subject to change,
Vietnam should rely on internal capacity and not open up to external aid again. Today, things have
41
changed to some extent, since the experience with foreign aid has shown not to have the feared effect
on domestic policies. Some reservations still exist towards implementation of development policies,
because generally, emphasis is on autonomy and national control over policies (Forsberg and Kokko
2007).
Thus, the priority in the relations with foreign actors leans towards defending the autonomy of the
nation (Ohno 2004).
In spite, and maybe because of this, in the past 15 years, where foreign donation projects have
been most active, Vietnam has become a popular recipient country, sometimes even referred to as
a ‘best practice’ example because of its good aid management and the government’s ownership of
the development agenda (Forsberg and Kokko 2007).
Actually, because Vietnam has partly managed to undergo an economic rise itself, which has not
only happened because of foreign aid, the state is in such a strong position that there is room to
reject development projects which has a too strong connection to political or financial demands. At
the same time, it seems as if the government understands the important role that foreign aid has
played and lately there has been a tendency towards allowing aid that has had the purpose of
making policy and institutional reforms at both the central and provincial levels, which could show
that the government is being more flexible (Forsberg and Kokko 2007).
During the past few years, there has been a decentralisation of development planning and aid
management within the institutional structure. These changes are part of a decentralization process
that is somewhat driven by the continuing economic reform process, but also encouraged and
influenced by the donor community. Yet there are some parts of the government who oppose to
the decentralisation, in favour of a more market-oriented decision making process, where other
actors such as provincial authorities, public interest groups, and business groups can be strategically
included in the development planning. (Forsberg and Kokko 2007)
A significant consequence of the closer contacts between donors, provincial authorities and line
ministries is that external aid resources have become more closely integrated with internal budget
management. Lately there has been a change in discourse, towards projects that are co-financed with
local resources, instead of projects funded solely by donors, which can then be run separately from the
provincial and central budgets. This trend has been supported by the 2002 State Budget Law and the
decrees on decentralisation (Forsberg and Kokko 2007).
The institutional changes in development planning and management reflect some of the impact that the
donor community has succeeded with in Vietnam. Individual donors have been arguing for
decentralization for a while, and this pressure seems to have led to changes in the Vietnamese planning
system. Donors have been interested in supporting decentralization and public administration reforms,
both at the central and provincial levels. This has happened even though the institutional capacity of
provinces and districts is weak. The improvements at the local level that have been achieved through
collaboration with foreign donors have made it possible to raise the objectives regarding
decentralization in general. One reason why this has been accepted at the central level is probably the
trust that has developed after two decades of development cooperation. Another reason is that it has
42
proved impossible to isolate the donor community from the Vietnamese society at large (Forsberg and
Kokko, The Role of Donors in Vietnamese Development Planning 2007).
The contacts between donors and various provincial and sectoral stakeholders have created domestic
interest groups that have contributed to the changes in the Vietnamese institutional framework. The
donor community has played a role in leading the way of the new practices, and many of the changes
that have started in aid-funded programs have gradually spread to other areas (Forsberg and Kokko
2007).
The role of Vietnam’s foreign development partners has been to introduce ideas, exert some pressures
for change, but also to provide an arena of demonstration projects, where the Vietnamese government
has been able to test new ideas and refine its thinking on development policy (Ohno 2004).
Forsberg and Kokko even say that “to some extent, it can be argued that the donor community has taken
on the roles played by civil society and a political opposition in parliamentary democracies.” If this is the
case, then the question is who is actually making the decisions in a project such as the JICA 3R HN
project, which might be an indicator of how solid waste management challenges will be solved in the
future (Forsberg and Kokko 2007).
Overall, even though there is a long way to real economic reforms on the original Doi Moi idea, and with
a strong civil society representation in policy making, it seems as if the relations with the donor
community are contributing positively to Vietnam’s development (Forsberg and Kokko 2007).
One of the larger bilateral long term donors, who have managed to build a good relationship to
Vietnam, and is perceived as being particularly influential, is Japan (Forsberg, Ownership and
institutional response to bilateral donors in Vietnamese poverty reduction 2004). Official Development
Assistance is the major source of financing for the most of Vietnam’s environmental projects in general,
and solid waste projects in particular. Major ODA donors in the solid waste management sector besides
JICA are the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. (JICA 2011)
There have been three Japanese Official Development Assistance projects in Hanoi, besides the JICA 3R
HN project, namely:
The study on environmental improvement at Hanoi City in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, from 1998
to 2000, The project for Urgent Equipment Supply for Waste Management in Hanoi City from 2002 to
2003 and The Comprehensive Urban Development Program in Hanoi City from 2004 to 2006, which
included solid waste management.
Other key projects on municipal solid waste in Hanoi funded by other donors worth mentioning are:
The Cau Dien composting plant with Spain as a donor and Hanoi URENCO as the executing agency,
Strengthening the pollution control and solid waste management in urban areas and industrial centres
in Vietnam, with Sweden as the donor. There are several other projects in other areas, both rural and
urban, within all spectres of solid waste management, funded by a range of international donors (JICA
2011).
43
Barriers in the municipal approach
The following chapter will draw upon the previous chapters and combine the quantitative empirical
data, the literature reviews with the qualitative empirical data, the interviews and present the municipal
approach to the informal waste recovery, drawing upon the theoretical approach as well.
The examples used of the municipal approach to the informal waste recovery sector used in this thesis is
the National Strategy on Integrated Solid Waste Management and the JICA 3R HN project from 2006 –
2009, plus background literature and general observations gained through interviews with the two
informants.
The National Strategy is a key document in municipal solid waste management and the JICA 3R HN
project is a good example of a way of making solid waste management projects, namely with a foreign
donor as one of the driving forces. These two initiatives and the two informants are representing the
institutional approach in terms of what in this thesis is called the current solid waste management. In
the current municipal solid waste management, the informal waste recovery sector is not addressed.
Table 6 The municipal goal for the collection and treatment of municipal solid waste
(World Bank, MONRE, CIDA 2004)
The central issue investigated in this thesis is how the informal waste recovery sector is addressed in the
municipal solid waste management system.
To sum up the overall background notion, as Wilson et al points out, the first step towards an approval
of the informal waste recycling sector is to “include recognition of the informal sector and the important
contribution it already makes through recycling” (Wilson, et al. 2009, 631). Other studies, such as
Scheinberg (2006) have adopted this and adds that this is the first step towards a possible strengthening
of waste collectors and waste intermediaries in their economic role in the waste system and that it will
44
create a more integrated solid waste management process (Scheinberg, Anschütz and van de Klundert
2006).
This first step and several more should support the waste pickers, waste collectors and the itinerant
waste buyers into source separation and separate collection services. But in order to be successful, a
part of the success relies on the participation of the sector during the planning, design and
implementation of institutional systems and physical infrastructure for collecting or processing
recyclables, but this entails that they are approached according to the ladder of citizen participation,
where a partnership should be formed in order to strengthen their legitimacy (Scheinberg, Anschütz and
van de Klundert 2006).
Current solid waste management
In 2009, The National Strategy of Integrated Solid Waste Management up to 2025, Vision towards 2050,
was published, but it has yet to be implemented (JICA 2011). It is a very ambitious strategy, that among
other things, says that “Integrated management of solid waste is the responsibility of the whole society
where the State play the main role, boost socialization, mobilize all resources and strengthen investment
in solid waste management” and “Integrated management of solid waste is realized in the manner of
inter-region and inter-branch to ensure the optimization in terms of economics and techniques, the
safety of society and environment, in connection with economic and social development, construction
planning and other development planning”.
In this, the informal sector is not mentioned directly, and the content is quite vague on what initiatives it
is promoting, but it is somewhat obvious that the sector should be included, based on the content in the
text above. Approaching them would meet the wording in the text saying that integrated management
of solid waste should boost socialisation, mobilise all resources and create social development in the
society among this very poor group.
The specific target for 2015 concerning household waste is that ..”85% of the total solid wastes from
households in urban area will be collected and treated in an environmentally manner, of which 60% will
be recycled, reused, recovered energy or produced organic fertilizer”. In the goals for 2020 and 2025, the
waste amounts to be recycled, reused, recovered energy or produced organic fertilizer are even higher.
URENCO has also put up a goal to collect "100 percent of the waste generated in Hanoi" (Huong 2011).
To reach this ambitious goal, the company has engaged in a long term planning and investment process
which includes upgrading their transportation equipment, constructing hospital waste incinerators,
transfer stations, and composting plants, and creation of a huge new waste processing zone about 40
km north of Hanoi. Despite these investments, however, URENCO may not be able to reach its stated
goal (Di Gregorio 1996). (Huong 2011)
URENCO does not include the informal waste recovery sector in this plan focuses on technical
investments and improvements. URENCO follows the National Strategy on integrated solid waste
management as the overall goal in its work and has no means to act on its own. (Huong 2011)
45
Table 7 In the National Strategy on Integrated Solid Waste Management up to 2025 and Vision to 2050,
there is an Action Program and Role of Related Ministries/Authorities for Integrated Solid Waste
Management
(Ministry of Natural Resources; Ministry of Construction 2009)
In the table above, Table 7, the program name ‘Promotion of Solid Waste Prevention, Reduce, Recycling
and Reuse’, the second target is to develop the recycling industry. This is referring to the last step in the
recycling process, namely craft villages only and not to the rest of the informal waste recovery sector (D.
N. Thang 2011). The reason for this might be that the craft villages are problematic in their working
methods which are polluting the surrounding society considerably, and that it is easier to implement
changes here, since it is entire villages with a fixed location and somewhat fixed working schedule, and
that the governmental agencies do not have to cooperate with other organisations, but can make
policies specifically regarding this part of the sector and have other governmental agencies make sure
they comply with these.
46
An example of an unsuccessful project, where one of the objectives was the recognition of the work of
the informal sector, which managed to exclude many from their livelihood, took place from 2007, where
URENCO piloted a scheme where URENCO collection workers collected and stored recyclable materials,
which was then sold directly to a waste receiver at the end of each month. The implications of this
scheme for waste collectors were negative, but for waste receivers the outcome was somewhat mixed.
If the program was to be spread out through the city, the receivers who can secure contracts with
URENCO will obtain a steady stream of waste, but for those who cannot secure contacts, or who
operate at such a small scale that they cannot afford to purchase and/or store a large volume of waste,
it could threaten their livelihood. It is also possible that receivers could be bypassed, with URENCO
selling recyclables for profit directly to traders and/or recycling villages (Mitchell 2008).
Barriers in current solid waste management
Through literature, studying the two examples of decision-makers approach to current solid waste
management in the National Strategy on Integrated Solid Waste and the JICA 3R HN Project
Management and the two interviews, it can be stated that the informal waste recovery sector is not
being approached in the current municipal solid waste management in Hanoi.
The problem of not approaching them in the municipal solid waste management system are related to
two issues; the social conditions of the informal sector as a poor group with insecure working conditions
and environmental challenges in the current solid waste management system. The collection and
recycling of waste provides this group with a livelihood and contributes to the overall municipal goal of
reducing waste by reusing and recycling and thereby putting less pressure on the landfills, providing the
landfills with more ‘clean’ waste and getting the waste off the street of Hanoi.
The problems related to this approach are diverse, but most of all it keeps the informal sector in a
locked position, which is reflected in their social conditions, where they have very uncertain conditions
and livelihood. The public is resentful towards them and they cannot afford an optimisation of their
working conditions with e.g. transfer stations or safety equipment, which might increase the
environmental efficiency.
In Vietnam, the culture is quite top-down and everything goes through the institution, and there is not a
history of inclusion of the citizen groups. This has though been a part of foreign aid projects where
communities, citizens and schools have been involved, but still in a strictly informative manner and not
through a partnership. Not approaching the informal sector also means that the municipality is not
acknowledging their work, even though it seems as if the decision-makers are aware that this group is
contributing to creating a more sustainable society while making an income for themselves, one of the
poorest groups in society.
On an environmental note, the municipality and URENCO have been focusing on the 3R’s: Reduce,
Reuse and Recycling and it seems as the future focus will also be on technical issues such as incineration
for energy recovery. Both the current policy with trying to increase the lifespan of the landfills and the
future with incineration, brings a need for separation and recycling of the waste, and it seems as if the
URENCO does not have the necessary resources to do this by themselves. As previously stated, one of
the informants informs that the informal sector is decreasing the amount of waste to landfill by
47
approximately 20 %, which is quite a high number. (D. N. Thang 2011) It also appears that the
institution forgot that people generate the waste and that people recycle the waste, since the previous
focus has been on policies, while the future will be on technical aspects.
This rest of the chapter will address the barriers that are found through the qualitative empirical data to
be the reason for this, and put these in relation to the theoretical approach.
URENCO and the informal sector
In URENCOs plan to collect 100% of the waste in Hanoi, the informal waste recovery sector is not
included. URENCO are aware that the overall goal that they need to follow is to collect 100 % of the solid
waste, reduce the waste to landfill site to only 40% and to recycle 60%. This is not done by cooperating
with the informal sector. URENCO has not played a direct role in making these goals, they are a part of
the National Strategy on Integrated Solid Waste Management that Ministry of Natural Resources and
Environment has published, and that they are obliged to follow and base their work on. (Huong 2011)
For the practical part, URENCO is in charge of collection, treatment etc., of all solid waste in Hanoi, and
the informant, Ms. Huong tells me that she is not aware of plans to change anything in the current
system (Huong 2011).
Even though Dr. Thang from ISPONRE informs me that they have been in contact with URENCO while
making the National Strategy, I doubt that URENCO have any actual influence on the finished result, and
that their part is to mainly act as the practitioner (D. N. Thang 2011).
Ms. Huong states that she does not know whether or not the stakeholders below URENCO, e.g.
Women’s Union, People’s Committee, Ngo’s etc. and the informal sector have a relationship, which
means that for URENCO, it is only the decision makers’ role and influence that are of concern, even
though Ms. Huong recognises the important social benefits that comes from this sector, and in some
ways also the environmental. She does acknowledge that the sector plays a good role for solid waste
management, but if there was no informal sector in Hanoi, the URENCO would have to establish
recycling facilities. (Huong 2011) With the current policy, where URENCO is closing its eyes partly but
taking advantage of the benefits they are getting through the work done by the informal sector, they are
also postponing having to make any decisions about technology and having to manage how to reach the
ambitious collection and treatment goal in the National Strategy. At the same time, the URENCO are
opening the gate to the Nam Soc landfill on a fixed timescale, so that the waste pickers can go to the
landfill and take recyclables. This is an example of how the URENCO would like to reap the benefits with
a minimum of work.
Barrier: ISPONRE does not get any input when making solid waste
management plans
As shown in an earlier chapter, environmental protection is decentralised, e.g. making the
responsibilities towards solid waste enormously divided. According to Dr. Thang who represents the
48
actual publisher of the National Strategy on Integrated Solid Waste Management, which is the strategy
to follow when dealing with solid waste, ISPONRE only has contact with URENCO and not actors below,
e.g. the women’s union, NGO’s, Community Based Organisations etc. He does not know if the
municipality has any influence on the informal sector, but on the other hand knows that they have
certain impact of the waste collection and waste treatment. If the sector did not exist, then around 20 –
25 % more waste would go to landfills.
Barrier: No policy for the informal sector
URENCO, acting as the practitioner, cannot do anything without there being a policy which allows them
to plan their work tasks. As Ms. Huong from URENCO says, there is no relationship with the informal
sector, because they do not have any policy for the informal sector and this is the reason why it is called
informal.
Barrier: Decision makers detached from the informal sector
URENCO is the key player in collection, transportation and treatment for solid waste. The Ministry of
Natural Resources and Environment also participate, but indirectly, just through policy and strategy
only. They provide general policy and guidance. Directly it should be Ministry of Construction, all the
way down to URENCO. The people’s committees, Women’s Unions, NGO’s, Community Based
Organisations and other stakeholders did not play a role in making the National Strategy. The URENCO
are invited to workshops during the process of making the strategy.
Overall it would probably not make a difference in the cooperation between URENCO and Ministry of
Natural Resources and Environment, but since the URENCO is not in contact with any stakeholders
below them in the system, none of the actors which are not part of the government, are heard while in
the process of making the National Strategy, and therefore it is highly likely that their needs and wishes
are not taken into account.
Barrier: Too many responsible decision-makers
One of the barriers is how the institutional responsibilities are divided, i.e. which ministry is responsible
for the policies that affect the informal waste recovery industry, e.g. the small scale recyclers, on the
other hand, fall under rules regulating the use of sidewalks, streets and land development (DiGregorio,
et al. 1998). If many different governmental institutions are responsible, then nothing might happen in
this quite bureaucratic system and culture.
A master plan for solid waste management in Hanoi has not been formulated yet, a draft facility plan in
implementation of waste treatment facilities in Hanoi has been formed in the City Plan up to 2020, but
by August 2011, it was not approved (JICA 2011). It was decided by the Prime Minister to begin a
preparation of a solid waste master plan for Hanoi as designated in ’No. 148/QD-TTg 25. Jan 2011:
Approval for the task of the planning on solid waste treatment in Hanoi until 2030 and vision to 2050.
Based on the JICA preparatory survey on the ‘Project for strengthening Capacity of Solid Waste
Management Toward 3R Initiative Promotion in Vietnam’ conducted in January 2010, the component
49
for the preparation of an integrated solid waste master plan in Hanoi was included as one of the outputs
(JICA 2011).
In other words, there is an overlap in duties and institutional gaps, which might reflect that the
institutional capacity is not adequate. This should urge the institution to seek towards stakeholders,
which they might be doing by including foreign aid organisations in the future work with solid waste
management, but still it is not a part of the culture to seek guidance and cooperation outside of the
institution, which is seen as the sole decision-maker in society.
Barriers and theory
The ladder of citizen participation is a theory about power distribution through cooperation and
communication. It is about being able to influence the outcome of a process and participating in making
social reforms that enables the stakeholders to benefit from the surrounding society in a way so that
everybody is taken into account. According to the ladder of citizen participation, the lowest sort of
citizen participation in the 8 step ladder is manipulation and therapy, in which the decision makers can
‘educate’ or ‘cure’ the participants. In the case of the informal sector as a citizen group, they are not
even being informed in the process of solid waste management, which is related to all the barriers.
There is no contact between the decision makers and the group, so the fact is that we are not even on
the lowest level in the ladder of citizen participation. There is one point where the URENCO has a little
bit of contact, namely when they open the gates for the informal sector to enter The Nam Soc landfill,
and this can possibly be regarded as manipulation, because it is one-way communication, where the
informal sector is might led to believe that they have something to say, but it is for the benefit of the
municipality. The decision makers are not recognising the sector as a stakeholder, simply because they
only regard fellow decision makers, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of
Construction etc. as stakeholders and there is no need to make a stakeholder analysis, since they regard
themselves as being autonomous. The institution is self-governing the people without concern about
their demands, because they know what is best for the people.This is due to the cultural and historical
background that is carried on in the institutions. Historically, both towards foreign donors and even
regarding national context in relation to local authorities and citizens, the decision makers want to be
autonomous.
One can say that institutional theory is the background for understanding why the decision makers act
as they do, while stakeholder theory provides a notion on a recommendation for the future work with
solid waste management, while citizen of ladder participation is a way of defining to what extent the
institution is engaging the stakeholders, and with recommendations of seeking as far up the ladder as
possible, providing the informal waste recovery sector with enough legitimacy to create a partnership.
50
Stakeholders in municipal solid waste management
In solid waste management in Hanoi, there is a range of actors, which can be divided into the following
groups:
• The public sector; national authorities and local authorities
• The private sector; large and small registered enterprises carrying out collection, transport, disposal
and recycling
•Community-based sector; NGO’s, CBO’s
• The informal sector; waste pickers, waste collectors, waste intermediaries, traders in waste materials
and non-registered small-scale enterprises
• The foreign aid organisations
Actors and hierarchy
In the Environmental Protection Law and the National Strategy on Integrated Solid Waste Management
there are some overall objectives, but no actions or initiatives to reach these objectives and no further
reports with this, and even the informant from ISPONRE, Dr. Thang, states that the goals in the strategy
are too ambitious. URENCO are currently working towards making the goals more feasible. (D. N. Thang
2011) (Huong 2011) Making more detailed and practical plans does not seem to be the main issue in the
solid waste management, but this is where a prospective collaboration with foreign aid would be an
advantage. In the next section, Future Solid Waste Management, the JICA has put forward a specific
action program in a solid waste management report. In the National Strategy on Integrated Solid Waste
Management it says to ‘mobilize all resources’, which can be interpreted as all stakeholders should be
mobilized in order to reach the objectives, which should include the informal waste recovery sector.
Mobilize all resources could also mean that all of the mentioned government agencies and Ministries in
the next section are included. From this section on the division of responsibilities, it shows that the
responsibilities towards municipal solid waste management are diffused and spread between local and
national actors.
51
Table 8 Example of how different tasks related to solid waste management are divided between
different governmental actors
(World Bank, MONRE, CIDA 2004, 38)
52
Future solid waste management
The role of the informal waste recovery sector in future municipal solid waste management is uncertain.
This is due to a number of issues; but at some point the sector might face the challenge of being
‘formalised’, and it is difficult to say what lies in a formalisation process. If the municipality will continue
the approach as it has had previously, with the sector very low on the ladder of citizen participation,
then it might not be a cooperation, but simply a relationship where the municipality informs the sector
of the changes.
As mentioned elsewhere in the thesis, according to some sources, the current solid waste management
system is changing as we speak, while other sources, such as the informant from URENCO, Ms. Huong
state that it is the same and will be the same for the near future. In relation to how it is changing, there
are different aspects, namely since governmental agencies seem to evaluate the responsibility towards
solid waste management and simplifying the roles of the actors. Also, there are a couple of new
initiatives which are focusing on treatment of the waste and technical input, which will quite possibly
have a impact on the solid waste management system. No matter what will happen, there are two
initiatives that have been found while searching for data. The main focus in the thesis is on the current
solid waste management and not what these two initiatives represent, namely the future, but in while
studying data this information appeared, which provides a small notion that the discourse towards
stakeholder engagement might change.
The two initiatives mentioning the sector in future sold waste management are the JICA vol 06 report on
solid waste management from August 2011 and an ISPONRE initiative that relates to investigating the
sector in order to formalise it in a law on recycling. The JICA report is included in the Appendix.
The JICA has made a Road Map to Improve Municipal Solid Waste Management in Vietnam, which
consists of an Action Programs, Actions, Responsible Agency, Coordination Agency, goal and schedule.
There are eight different Action Programs, and each has an objective towards 2016:
1. Implementation of National Strategy on integrated solid waste management
2. Formulation and implementation of integrated solid waste management master plan in each
local government
3. Innovation of municipal solid waste treatment and disposal technology and development of
proper solid waste management facilities in nation wide
4. Establishment of Solid Waste Information Management System (SWIMS)
5. Introduction and Dissemination of Source Separation and Community based Solid Waste
Management
6. Awareness Rising on 3R and Public Sanitation
7. Enhancement of Recycling Activities by the Governmental Sector
8. Management of Privatisation/Socialisation
(JICA 2011)
Action Program seven is the most appropriate one to include actions about the informal waste recovery
sector and the goal of the program is that ‘Recycling industries which meet environmental requirement is
Developed’.
53
The suggested actions in the program are:
•Clarify current condition and issues on recycling, including flow of recyclables; i.e. paper, plastic, iron,
non-ferrous metal, glass, e-waste, waste car etc. by each local government
•Clarify the forward-looking position of recycling activities by the private sectors in the Integrated Solid
Waste Management Strategy of the national level and Integrated Solid Waste Management master plan
of the local government
•Establishment of ‘Recycling Fund’ in each local government as a focal point of encouragement of
recycling activities
•In order to widely invite the private sectors to be involved in the recycling industries, creation of
incentives and/or supporting mechanism of recycling sectors; such as budget allocation, tax exemption,
financial incentive, providing free land etc. should be established by the government.
• “Eco-town” composed of recycling industries should be formulated to encourage recycling activities
and to unify current scattering activities (JICA 2011).
In the Outline of Each Action Program of the Roadmap in the JICA report, the Action program – 7,
Enhancement of Recycling activities by the government sector is specified:
“In Vietnam, recycling is mainly carried out by the informal sectors such as rag-pickers, scrap-dealers,
craft villagers etc. with ad-hoc bases. Its scale is rather wide, however, one of the issues is that the
labour cost for each recycling activities are not properly covered. In addition, at craft villages, recycling
activities are carried out under the very poor environmental conditions. Based on this understanding, in
order to promote recycling in line with waste 3R, support from government sector, such as
environmental improvement of craft villages, creation of incentives on recycling etc. is required.
HCMC has developed a “Waste recycling fund” by the initiative of PC to support for recycling activities in
this city and it shows some achievement. Role of this fund is providing soft loan to the recycling entities,
awareness raising of citizens etc. However, this is the only city which has this type of fund so far.
Goal
Recycling industry which meet environmental requirement is developed
Responsible agency
MONRE, MOIT, MOC, PCs
Description of Action
As pointed out that the recycling in Vietnam is performed informally, at present. Therefore, information
in current status of recycling activities is very limited. As a result, one of the actions should be carried out
promptly is clarifying the current situations. It follows that the forward looking position of recycling
activities by the private sectors in ISWM strategy and master plan of both national and local level.
“Recycling Fund” which is being operated in HCMC is a good example that should be studied more to
developed to other areas of Vietnam.
“Eco-town” is one successful experienced which developed in Japan would be considered to developed in
Vietnam in order to unify the scattering activities as well as encourage the development of recycling
activities in a proper way”.
This is on a government level, based on a national level, a more specific local Hanoi level is specified:
54
Program – 6, Enhancement of Recycling Activities by the Hanoi PC and local authorities of surrounding
area:
Development of recycling industries to introduce proper technology and to meet environmental
requirement.
Goal
Clarify current condition and issues on recycling, including flow of recyclables; i.e. paper, plastic, iron,
non-ferrous metal, glass, e-waste, waste car etc. by each local government
Responsible agency
DOET, DOIT
Description of Action
Establishment and functioning of ’Recycling Fund’ as a focal point of encouragement of recycling
activities, based on experience in HCMC.
Set up the mechanism to introduce proper recycling technology to the current recycling industries.
A concept of ’Eco-town’ with incentives and/or supporting mechanism of recycling sectors; such as
budget allocation, tax exemption, financial incentive, providing free land etc. should be developed and
implemented with pilot scale. (JICA 2011)
The program period is expected to run from 2013 – 2018 and the expected input from JICA 254 people
and JPN 12.000 million”.
So, in this JICA report, the informal waste recovery sector is being addressed, the question is then, what
specific actions this will initiate and what the consequences for the informal waste recovery sector are.
The JICA is a foreign aid institution, and is it interesting to reflect on how this report and the work of
JICA will influence the municipal approach. In the table below, published by the government, the first
target includes to ‘Develop the recycling industry’. This might suggest that the focus is on a private
recycling industry. Since the focus in the thesis has not been a bottom-up approach and there has not
been any contact with the informal sector or representatives of the sector, it is difficult to provide a
notion on what the benefits from the different recommendations. Offhand, seen from an environmental
point of view, while keeping health conditions in view as well, it is important to improve the conditions
in the craft villages. The way the waste is being treated at the moment is highly polluting, and there is
no information about or control with the working conditions, and plus, the craft villages are easier to
approach, since they geographically can be located at certain places. One of the focus points concerning
the rest of the informal sector should be to provide the citizens with proper information about the
sector, creating transfer stations for the waste and providing the sector with appropriate attire, namely
safety clothes, gloves and means to transport the recyclables. These initiatives could easily be part of a
foreign aid project as well as a municipal approach, since it does not demand speaking with each and
every person in the sector. Once these transfer stations has been established, the contact to the sector
can develop from these.
55
In ISPONRE, which can be considered to be a think tank for the Ministry of Natural Resources and the
Environment, which again is responsible for the overall approach to solid waste management in Hanoi
and the policies regarding it, there are some new and innovative approaches to the future solid waste
management. ISPONRE as well as URENCO recognise the environmental problems related to the craft
villages, but the difference between the two is that ISPONRE can make the policy which URENCO has to
follow. As by the end of 2011, the process of making the ‘law on resource efficiency’ has come to where
ISPONRE has applied for money to perform a background study in order to develop the recycling law.
The idea is to make the informal sector formal, but with a focus on the craft villages. The problem, seen
from ISPONREs view is that there is too much pollution in and around the craft villages, because the
work is at household, small scale level, and therefore difficult to regulate. Therefore the plan is to create
a law so that it is easier to bring companies into the craft villages and introduce the businesses into big
scale technology and treatment facilities. This is the main focus in the law (D. N. Thang 2011).
As goes for the rest of the informal sector, the ideas for interventions are somewhat uncertain. The
overall idea is to organise the pickers, collectors and junk buyers into networks and provide them with
protecting clothes and create transfer stations for them. (D. N. Thang 2011)
The background study will begin in 2012 and the plan is that the law will be implemented by 2015 in
cooperation with Ministry Of Construction, Ministry Of Education and Training, Ministry Of Industry and
Trade, Ministry of Science and Technology and different municipalities, which means that a lot of actors
have to work towards implementing this into their work.
Also a new report from JICA, published in August 2011, mentions the informal waste recovery sector.
Both informants in this thesis, namely representatives from URENCO and ISPONRE, have not heard of
this report.
A part of the different initiatives that the government is supporting, such as revising the environmental
protection laws and adopting Vietnam Agenda 21, the government is promoting a new initiative as part
of a national strategy. From 2006 to 2009, the Vietnamese government supported the JICA 3R HN by
Japan International Cooperation Agency, with Hanoi URENCO as the executing agency. This project is an
example of a solid waste management cooperation project with a municipal actor and foreign aid actor.
It is very difficult to tell if this is a set up that will be common in the future. There is no answer to this
question, since the data is pointing in different directions. The informant from ISPONRE, Dr. Thang, does
not want to reject that foreign money might be of use in a future project, but to what scale a foreign aid
organisation is going to have an influence, he finds difficult to answer. The other informant, Ms. Huong
recognises the need for foreign aid in technical assistance, because this is one of the places where
national knowledge is having difficulties. But to what extent there is going to be public-private
partnerships or partnerships between the Vietnamese municipalities and foreign aid organisations is
difficult to answer. Vietnam is lacking expertise in a range of areas related to solid waste management,
but at the same time very dedicated to keeping their autonomy.
56
Conclusion
Through the thesis, the method has been to study the working questions put forward in the
methodology, to help provide an answer to the research question. The answers to the working
questions are all a part of answering the overall questions, and the conclusion will bring step by step
answers to the process.
The informal waste recovery sector is difficult to define since it consist of several different groups, and
practically these are difficult to trace because they are approximately 6000 people working individually
and not in any fixed locations or in a fixed time schedule. The informal waste sector seem to be quite
efficient, even though there are no precise official or unofficial numbers, one of the informants is stating
that they are reducing the waste to landfills by approximately 20 % by collecting waste from households,
landfills, streets, public locations and selling it to waste intermediaries, junk buyers who again sells it to
craft villages who is the final receiver in the sector, which finally turns the waste into new products.
The informal waste sector does not cooperate with anyone, except from other people in the sector.
They live with each other, chat with each other when they meet on the street and sell and buy from and
to each other. Several researchers have been in contact with them to perform a study, but to my
understanding, they do not have contact with public authorities. There are policies that put up goals to
how much the craft villages can pollute etc., but this thesis is mostly concentrating on the other groups
in the sector.
So, first and foremost, to answer the research question, the current municipal approach to the informal
waste recovery sector is ignoring it. There is a broad recognition of the benefits that the sector in
general is providing the city of Hanoi, but the small focus point seen from a municipal perspective
towards the sector is how the craft villages are polluting their surrounding environment. The rest of the
sector, the waste pickers, collectors and intermediaries are not being spoken of and their work is not
being articulated.
This is due to a number of things, and through the different sources of data, it has been possible to point
out these barriers:
• ISPONRE does not get any input when making solid waste management plans
• Decision makers are detached from the informal sector
• There is no policy for the informal sector
• Too many responsible decision-makers
All these barriers are related to the culture in the institution. The three barriers detected in the thesis
are all related to the institutional approach to solid waste management, and let us not forget the culture
which is very much funded in communism. Without going much into this political, social and economic
ideology, these barriers are founded in the culture of the society, of which the institutions are the
carriers. The fact that there is no policy for the informal sector makes it difficult for URENCO to deal with
it. There is an institutional gap, since the URENCO can only approach the sector if there is a policy
regarding their work, since the institutional rules and norms are so strong in this case. The norms of the
57
institution are that only related decision makers are approached when deciding on things in society. The
same goes for the barrier where decision makers are detached from the informal sector, because they
simply have not identified stakeholders outside of the decision making arena. The barrier regarding the
policy is clear, because why make a policy about something that you are trying to ignore, because
approaching the problem by creating a policy, gets it out in the open. If the institution recognised this
groups’ work, then it would have to realise or admit that it is not fulfilling its responsibilities towards the
citizens, since this group manages to collect municipally uncollected waste and meet the goal of
recycling which is put up by the municipality. The institution decides what is best for the people, and it is
a challenge for them to realise that there is a group of people who are so poor that they have to resort
to working with waste to earn a livelihood.
It seems as if the institution is working parallel of the society, e.g. when making the National Strategy on
Integrated Solid Waste Management, creating such ambitious goals, so that even the URENCO who is
supposed to implement this, does not even know how this should be feasible.
The decision makers do not know how to institutionalise the informal waste sector and therefore it is
easier to gain from its work without having to commit to it. Historically and culturally the state as the
dominating institution must stand by its power by being the sole decision maker. By including other
stakeholders, the institution is showing to be less of an autocrat and not as strong as it should be to
protect the citizens.
Trying to tie both the knowledge about the barriers in the current solid waste management, which is in
fact the focus on the thesis, and the two initiatives from ISPONRE and JICA that might characterise the
future solid waste management, there are a lot of challenges. Without going in dept with the complex
issue of telling what lies in the future, there are some initiatives which might bring better social, health
and economic conditions for the informal waste recovery sector. These are dependent on a change in
how the solid waste management is decentralised, the responsibility of formalising the sector should be
explicit and stating the responsible stakeholders for the cooperation, along with the objectives followed
in the process and hopefully free of any economic incentives along the way, such as corruption. It is
possible that the Vietnamese government will have to get help from an outside source, a foreign aid
organisation, who has another cultural practice when it comes to identifying stakeholders and citizen
participation, since these are important elements towards a society where more factors in solid waste
management than political and treatment is considered.
It is also dependant of a change in culture among the citizens of Hanoi, which might be changed with a
changing approach from decision-makers showing the way through policies. Even though in some
aspects, the Vietnamese society is developing independent of the institutional ideology and policies, I
believe that in the case of the view on the informal waste recovery sector, the institution could help
change the view on the sector. Many citizens are not aware that the informal sector is contributing to
the environmental services in Hanoi and think that they are dirty and sort of working against the formal
system. If one disregard a few small projects where e.g. community based organisations have tried to
inform people of the sector’s work, how are people supposed to know this, since the majority of
information is gained through loudspeakers and public announcements in the radio and on television,
provided by institutional authorities.
58
In this thesis, the Vietnamese municipalities; the institution, in charge of solid waste management, seem
not to have investigated the relevant stakeholders in relation to the subject, and according to the
stakeholder theory, identifying and engaging stakeholders are a key factor to creating a sustainable solid
waste management system, since waste is generated by individuals and groups in the society and affects
all people in the society as well. Solid waste is not related to the institution, but to all aspects of the
society, the citizens’ daily lives, the environment and the livelihood of the informal waste recovery
sector etc. It appears as if the institution is carrying on as it used to, making policies and strategies which
has an influence on the stakeholders, but working in a manner so that the institution does not lose face,
e.g. , but without considering the practical issues.
The focus is now on the treatment of the waste, and in the near future the focal issues within solid
waste management will probably be on technical solutions rather than landfills, but the waste is
generated and collected by people, and the institution tend to forget this aspect.
59
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