Workers feed plastic into the incinerator at a waste treatment plant in the southern province of Tây Ninh. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — More than 67,000 tonnes of household solid waste are generated across Việt Nam daily, yet only a fraction – just 20 to 25 per cent – is recyclable.

The rest, ranging from single-use plastic bags to foam boxes and food scraps, ends up in landfills, burned in open pits or dumped into the environment.

These figures illustrate a crisis growing in both scale and complexity: a waste management system that is overwhelmed and falling behind the pace of urbanisation and economic growth, said Hồ Kiên Trung, deputy director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment's Department of Environmental Pollution Control.

While Việt Nam’s economy has expanded rapidly, so too has its waste. The country now ranks among the fastest-growing waste generators in the Asia–Pacific region.

In urban areas alone, more than 25 million tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) are produced annually – a figure that is expected to surge to 40 million tonnes by 2030 if no meaningful interventions are made.

Despite these staggering volumes, the country’s recycling and waste-to-energy capacity remains limited. Only about 15–20 per cent of household waste is treated using modern methods like incineration or recycling.

The vast majority is either buried in landfills, many of which are unsanitary, or left untreated, posing mounting environmental and health risks.

In HCM City, approximately 10,000 tonnes of MSW are collected daily, most of which is transported to landfills in Đa Phước and Phước Hiệp. According to city planning reports, only 33 per cent of this waste is treated through composting, incineration without energy recovery or recycling.

The remaining 67 per cent is sent to landfills, continuing a decades-long trend of inefficient disposal.

Hà Nội fares no better. As of 2022, more than 90 per cent of its daily 8,000 tonnes of waste was still being buried.

While the Thiên Ý waste-to-energy plant has since begun processing around 5,500 tonnes of garbage per day, roughly 3,000 tonnes still end up in landfills, representing a missed opportunity to recover energy and reduce environmental harm.

In Hải Phòng, a daily load of over 2,000 tonnes of MSW presents an escalating challenge for a city still heavily reliant on burial as its primary disposal method.

Việt Nam also faces a mounting crisis in plastic waste. The country discharges about 3.1 million tonnes of plastic each year, placing it among the top five ocean plastic polluters globally. Of this, around 10 per cent is directly dumped into the sea.

With 112 river mouths, nearly 80 per cent of Việt Nam’s marine plastic originates from inland waste, mostly household trash.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment estimates that Việt Nam produces 24.5 million tonnes of MSW and 8.1 million tonnes of industrial waste annually.

Collection rates vary from about 70–85 per cent in urban areas to 40–55 per cent in rural areas, reaching just 31 per cent in the industrial sector.

Despite these figures, the country still relies heavily on basic disposal methods. Việt Nam has more than 660 landfills, but only 120 meet sanitary standards. Landfilling dominates, accounting for 64 per cent of MSW treatment, with composting and waste-to-energy making up a small fraction.

The environmental consequences are severe. Open burning and substandard incineration release hazardous compounds such as dioxins and furans. Methane emissions from landfills contribute significantly to global warming, with methane being 25 times more potent than CO2.

The damage extends to agriculture as well. Non-biodegradable waste in soil depletes nutrients, reduces biodiversity and lowers crop yields. For a country where farming remains a vital economic sector, this presents long-term food security risks.

Although the 2020 Environmental Protection Law introduced the 'polluter pays' principle, implementation has been sluggish. Source separation of waste remains rare. Most households continue to discard mixed waste, rendering recycling or energy recovery difficult and costly.

Even in cities like HCM City and Hà Nội, where some modern facilities exist, landfill remains the dominant treatment method. Investment in advanced technologies, such as waste-to-energy plants or centralised composting, lags far behind demand.

Policy support has also been weak. Modern treatment methods are more expensive than landfilling, yet financial incentives and investment subsidies remain limited. Meanwhile, Việt Nam’s circular economy strategies and extended producer responsibility schemes are still in early development.

Public awareness is another hurdle. Waste is often seen as useless, and habits of single-use consumption persist. Source separation is not a common practice, and national education campaigns have yet to deliver widespread changes in behaviour.

Ironically, while waste volumes surge, Việt Nam's manufacturing sector faces a shortage of raw materials. Each year, the country imports millions of tonnes of scrap steel, plastics and recycled paper, much of which could be sourced domestically if proper waste recovery systems were in place.

In 2024 alone, Việt Nam imported 4.92 million tonnes of scrap steel, a 14 per cent increase over the previous year. In the first four months of 2025, scrap imports from Japan, the US and Australia grew sharply, driven by revived domestic demand in construction and manufacturing.

Yet while demand for recyclables rises, vast quantities of domestic waste with reuse potential continue to be buried or burned.

Việt Nam has 1,548 MSW treatment facilities, but only seven of them are waste-to-energy plants. Composting exists at just 30 locations. Meanwhile, nearly 1,200 facilities still rely on basic landfilling.

At a recent seminar, Trung acknowledged gaps in coordination among Government ministries and local authorities. Local units still struggle to set appropriate collection and treatment fees, particularly in rural, mountainous and island regions, where special pricing mechanisms are needed.

The country also lacks dedicated infrastructure to handle sorted waste streams. There are no large-scale facilities to convert food waste into compost, and few centres to receive recyclable materials.

Amid these challenges, a growing consensus is emerging: waste is not merely a threat, it is an untapped resource.

When properly sorted and processed, waste can yield material, biological, energy and even data resources. One tonne of waste can generate 500–600kWh of electricity.

Livestock waste can power biogas systems. Recycled metals, plastics and paper can be reintegrated into manufacturing cycles. Precious metals in e-waste can support high-tech industries.

Yet unlocking this potential requires more than infrastructure. It demands a shift in mindset, from viewing waste as a liability to treating it as an economic asset.

Waste is an underutilised resource. For Việt Nam, the challenge now is to translate this principle into practice. Otherwise, the country risks burying not only its waste, but also its future opportunities. — VNS