Globally, proper handling of solid waste has been a huge challenge. As a result of population growth, economic expansion, fast urbanization, and changes in consumer habits, a large amount of garbage is produced by the globe. The World Bank (WB) warns that global waste increase by 70 percent on current levels by 2050. It is estimated that by 2025 and 2050, global urban solid waste production will reach 2,200,000 tons and 4,200,000,000 tons, respectively.

Vietnam is also struggling with plastic waste. Every year, between 2.8 to 3.1 million tons of plastic waste are discharged on land, making it one of the world's major sources of plastic litter. The government of Vietnam is aware of the environmental threat posed by plastic litter, and the urgent need to take actions to reduce plastic pollution. One of their strategic actions is to turn trash into energy at Waste-to-Energy (WtE) thermal plants.

Currently, there are several WtE thermal plants in Vietnam. Among the WtE projects in Hanoi Capital, there is one with the largest capacity, Soc Son Waste to Energy Plant, situated in located in the Soc Son District, Hanoi. Also, the second largest one, Dong Ke Waste-to-Energy Plant (1,200t/day), and the third one, Phu Dong WtE (1,200t/day) and the fourth one, Xuan Son WtE (1,000t/day) are currently under operation. Besides the capital, there exist more plants in other cities such as Da Nang (1,000 t/day), Bac Ninh (600t/day), Can Tho (400 t/day). Furthermore, at present, HCMC has five ongoing projects targeting at transforming the current municipal solid waste (MSW) plants into WtE models, according to the city’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DoNRE), which indicates that the Vietnamese government vies WtE as a valuable and strategic solution.

According to International Finance Corporation, the potential for energy recovery from solid waste in Vietnam is approximately 1,400 MW, which could contribute to generating the country's electricity. However, it is important to recognize only a fraction of this potential is realized, with the country’s waste-to-energy (WtE) capacity calculated at around 300MW. These obstacles include a lack of supportive government policies and regulations, high costs associated with building and operating these facilities, limited public understanding and acceptance of the technology, and inadequate expertise and resources within relevant institutions.

According to a report, typically, WtE poses opportunities for: (1) Cities with rising waste quantities and limited space for landfills as they become more urbanized that are seeking ways to quickly reduce the volume of waste; (2) Cities that are seeking additional benefits from waste treatment, such as reducing greenhouse gas emission by eliminating landfills, as well as recovering energy from waste and increasing economic incentives through waste management and energy recovery; (3) Cities that are seeking effective in controlling infractions from viruses or microbes in waste and reside after recycling. However, simultaneously, the report warns that it is worth nothing and that there are many barriers to the introduction.

The UNEP report  cautions that thermal WtE in developing countries faces technical (waste characteristics) and governance (social, financial, legislative) challenges. This highlights the limitations of WtE as a standalone solution, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing waste reduction and reuse/recycling before resorting to incineration.

The Cost of Turning Trash into Energy

Investment and operation costs are the two major elements that determine thermal WtE plant development. A WtE plant requires large investment and operation costs that on average are much higher than other waste treatment methods.

In the case of Vietnam, the public-private partnership (PPP) model and the competitive tipping fee are applied. Employing the PPP business model, or the build-operate-transferred operate-transfer (BOT) scheme in particular, worked to eliminate the historical Vietnamese barrier to the heavy capital cost of investment. For Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) treatment, local governments currently spend USD 4.0 on MSW landfilling- much less than that spent on WtE incineration. E.g., USD 15.77t-1 and USD 21 t-1 CanTho plant and WtE project of Soc Son, each.  However, PPP model in WtE investment is quite new and remains incompletely institutionalized in Vietnamese legislation. The fact that local PPP guidance has been applied to most of the WtE projects have made the investment procedure difficult to compare across the country.

In the case that Vietnam heavily relies on the WtE solution to dispose of MSW, the scale of incentives from the government and other relevant regulations should be secured. If not, the public might face the economic burden of externalizing operational costs, particularly social and health costs through healthcare . According to a study, in the case of China owning more than 400 WtE thermal plants, 11 incineration plants across Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, and Jiangxi were found to be owed 478 million renminbi (65.61 million USD) in national and provincial electricity. This suggests some of the incinerators in China cannot fully cover their costs despite the numerous economic incentives in China.

Moreover, tipping fees are decided locally based on the province’s budget, so they vary among provinces and technologies. To minimize this difficulty, MONRE has offered an average of about USD 20 per tone of waste . The reason for this relatively low fee is the exclusion of the residue treatment cost from the total cost, along with less stringent environmental standards, lower labor costs, simpler technology, and lower land leasing expenses. If the current imperfect situation with the low fee and the exclusion of the residue treatment cost from the total cost continues, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DONRE) will need to sign contracts with investors and carry the entire burden of the hefty cost on their shoulders to operate the plants. They should remember that the current financial constraints could be a huge social loss and affect both the country and the public eventually.    

Legal Challenges

WtE legal challenges vary in developing countries, depending on the specific country and local conditions. Legal aspects are closely tied to social, economic and environmental aspects. In the case of the Philippines, the challenges arise from the seeming policy contraction of both an incineration ban and the existence of thermal WtE guidelines. In the case of China, economic incentives in the country promote incinerator construction, but they ignore the external costs to the environment. These hidden costs harm people's health and are a burden on public healthcare systems. 

In Vietnam, the investment approach to WtE projects in Vietnam was deemed complex due to a lack of systematic direction and the vague or overlapping nature of the numerous entities involved. However, the example of the success of the Can Tho plant motivated the Hanoi capital people's committee and became a driver to establish other WtE plants. Also, legal incentives to invest in the establishment on the WtE projects investment adopted facilitated WtE investment and provided support mechanisms for the development of power-generation projects using solid waste in Vietnam. Regulated landfilling restriction has also caused the move to WtE application in Hanoi Capital, as the existing treatment capacity is far short of meeting the relevant targets. Interestingly, some of the experts insist that the attitude towards, WtE implementation and the successful operationalization of the Can Tho plant substantially motivated Hanoi Capital and other provinces to contemplate WtE projects.

Health and Environmental Concerns

Public worries linger about the health and environmental effects of Waste-to-Energy (WtE), especially older plants built between the 1970s and 1990s such as the United States and Japan caused a high levels of air pollution due to dioxin and furan emissions.  The highly toxic chemicals such as furans and dioxins. Appropriate combustion conditions are necessary to reduce dioxin emissions in thermal WtE plants. To ensure minimum environmental and health impact, WtE plants should ideally meet the stringent European Union emission standards. Yet in developing countries. There are often no, or less strict, incineration emission standards and/or related law enforcement for WtE. Also, poor operation and maintenance has resulted in higher dioxin emissions in plants in developed countries too.

Currently, there are no standards or regulations available in Vietnam on the adequate treatment and disposal of WtE residues (fly ash, bottom ash). Bottom ash controls were, therefore, based on QCVN 07:2009/BTNMT (National Technical Regulation on Hazardous Waste thresholds) in relation to the possible re-use of this material as a construction material, as seen at the Can Tho Plant. Fly ash, which contains hazardous substances and requires appropriate treatment and disposal, was surprisingly observed to be stored in a warehouse inside the Can Tho Plant. About 15-18 of fly ash packed in waterproof bags after stabilization by the addition of a chelating agent was accumulating daily, waiting for regulation on its safe treatment to be adopted.

Additionally, the Can Tho local government (Not investors) was found to be in charge of fly ash treatment. In 2019, as the storage space was nearly full, the Can Tho government had to move about 3,000 Tons of fly Ash and left it piled up in an open site that was planned to be a landfill site near the plant, which might have negatively affected the local society.

Public Resistance (major obstacle)

Public opposition is often a major obstacle for WtE projects in both developed and developing countries. Public approvals, or “social license”, must be obtained in order to build a thermal WtE plant. This section discusses the main causes of public opposition, including plant site allocation, the lock in effect and potential trade-offs of the 3Rs for thermal WtE.

In Vietnam, the opposition by local people where there are the WtE plants has raised concerns about social acceptance of the implementation of the plant. Although this issue originated from local people’s prior negative experiences with waste treatment operations, it has been fueled by a lack of adequate public communication during WtE project initiation. Moreover, the reduction of community consultation to merely the passive written document.

In many developing countries, WtE is often associated with ministries or agencies from the energy sector. However, their interest should not be to maximize energy production from waste but to optimize the recovery of energy from waste fractions that cannot be recycled. And Vietnam is not an exception. Although WtE could be a solution to reduce waste that cannot be recycled, it is more important to put more effort into re-using and recycling waste and set pollution and risk control plans, which could potentially disadvantage MSW management in the long term. Most of all, in terms of multilateral aspects, the policymakers of the province should carefully evaluate if WtE is fundamentally the best solution in terms of the waste of the waste hierarchy and circular economy.

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- Article, “IFC Promote Waste to Energy Solutions as Vietnam Shift to a Low carbon Economy), Dec 2021
Report, “Waste-to-Energy Incinerations” by the United Nation Environment Programme and the Institute for Global Environmental strategies, June 2020
- Report, Waste to Energy (Considerations for Informed decision-making), 2019
- Paper, Divers and constraints of waste-to-energy incineration for sustainable municipal solid waste management in developing countries.,(2021)., Nguyen et al.
- Waste-to-energy (considerations for informed decision making), Page 34, China’s revolution.
- Older industrial facilities, including those built between the 1970s and 1990s in the US and Japan, did contribute significantly to air pollution through emissions of dioxins and furans. These chemicals are classified as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) due to their ability to stay in the environment for long periods and accumulate in the food chain. https://www.unep.org/ietc/resources/publication/waste-energy-considerations-informed-decision-making
- Paper, Divers and constraints of waste-to-energy incineration for sustainable municipal solid waste management in developing countries.,(2021)., Nguyen et al.