On December 14, 2024, Lao Dong Newspaper organized a seminar on "Recycling cost norms (Fs) to promote recycling and environmental protection" with the participation of Mr. Nguyen Thi - Senior Expert of the Legal Department (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment) and Dr. Tran Van Mieu - Vice President of the Vietnam Association for Conservation of Nature and Environment.
At the seminar, experts shared opinions, views, and perspectives on promoting the recycling and reuse market and providing many optimal solutions for waste treatment in our country.
Accordingly, currently, along with socio-economic development, rapid urbanization and population growth have created great pressure on the environment as the amount of domestic and industrial waste discharged is increasing. It is estimated that every day, the whole country generates about 60 thousand tons of waste, but only 15% is collected, recycled or reused.
Commenting on the limitations in the treatment and recycling of waste, Dr. Tran Van Mieu - Vice President of the Vietnam Association for Conservation of Nature and Environment said that the main reason is the legal issue. Although the Law on Environmental Protection 2020 and Decree 45 on administrative sanctions for violations in the field of environmental protection have been issued, the policies have not yet gone deeply into practical life, so they have not had a profound impact on the people.
"Currently, many people still think that waste is something to be thrown away and do not pay much attention to classification, making waste recycling still difficult," said Dr. Tran Van Mieu.
Mr. Nguyen Thi - Chief Expert of the Legal Department (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment) said that waste collection and recycling is currently dependent on traditional collection systems such as scrap collection yards. However, this system cannot meet the industrial scale because the collection quality is still low. Along with that, the modern industrial recycling system in our country is still relatively small, making recycling difficult.
Mr. Nguyen Thi commented that it is necessary to continue developing in the direction of public-private partnership (PPP) to quickly access modern collection systems such as establishing automatic, semi-automatic, and modern recycling collection points. This depends on the planning and determination of authorities at all levels. In addition, it is necessary to promote regional linkages, and not to divide management into local areas. This will help to gather large amounts of waste for recycling.
Currently, one of the advances of the 2020 Environmental Protection Law is the regulation of the extended responsibility of manufacturers and importers for products and packaging (abbreviated as EPR). EPR includes the responsibility for collection, treatment and recycling. In which, the responsibility for collection and treatment has been implemented since the beginning of 2022. The responsibility for recycling packaging and products has been implemented since January 1, 2024 for some products and packaging. And to implement the responsibility for recycling packaging and products, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is developing a recycling cost norm, abbreviated as Fs. Many experts believe that Fs is the key to successfully implementing the responsibility for recycling in particular and EPR in general.
Dr. Tran Van Mieu believes that the establishment of Fs norms must be scientific and based on the reality of our country. If it is too low, it will not be suitable, however, if it is too high, it will be difficult to implement because there is no profit, causing difficulties for businesses. Therefore, to issue a correct and sufficient Fs norm, it is necessary for businesses to participate and contribute to come up with average norms that are suitable to reality.
As the unit assigned to research and issue the draft on Fs recycling costs, Mr. Nguyen Thi - Chief Expert of the Legal Department (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment) said that Vietnam's recycling cost standards are built on the basis of investigation and survey, the recycling reality of our country. The Legal Department has coordinated with Hanoi University of Science and Technology to conduct a survey from the North to the South for recyclers who meet the environmental protection standards at an average level to meet the regulations of EPR.
Accordingly, the Legal Department has learned from European countries about EPR methods such as deposit refund for packaging. Along with that, the Legal Department also learned from Taiwan (China) which is an EPR organization through paying money into Taiwan's environmental protection fund to promote recycling collection activities. They use 30% of the business contribution to manage the system, and 70% to promote collection and recycling. All of the above models can learn from the method and to balance the requirements of Vietnam.
