Sustainability Evaluation of Municipal Solid Waste Management System for Hanoi (Vietnam)—Why to Choose the ‘Waste-to-Energy’ Concept

Abstract

According to decision no. 491/QD-TTg signed in 2018 by the Vietnamese Prime Minister approving adjustments to the national strategy for the general management of solid waste until 2025 with a vision toward 2050, Vietnam has committed itself to move toward collecting, transporting, and treating 100% of non-household waste by 2025 and 85% of waste discharged by households by 2025. This paper aims to determine which is the best sustainable solid waste management system out of those that have been formulated by World Bank experts for Hanoi until 2030 for implementing the national strategy. The paper compares four distinct solid waste management enhancement alternatives, namely, “Improving the current system for waste collection and transportation”; “Reducing, reusing, and recycling waste at source”; “Mechanical–biological treatment (MBT) plants for classifying, composting, and refuse-derived fuel (RDF) for the cement industry”; and “MBT plants for classifying, composting, and RDF for waste-to-energy/incineration plants”. The comparison was made using an analytic hierarchy process. As a result, the research indicated that “MBT plants for classifying, composting, and RDF for waste-to-energy/incineration plants” has the highest ranking in terms of a sustainable solution for the municipal solid waste management system. Therefore, it should be applied for managing the current situation in Hanoi. At the same time, the sustainable development of the system must seek to decrease the waste-to-energy ratio continuously and significantly through the planned reuse of materials that can be recycled to industry. According to the literature, in major cities in Asia and Africa, development programs are moving toward waste-to-energy solutions. The EU’s circular innovation programs and action plan may be in the opposite direction to this trend.

Raising Awareness on Solid Waste Management through Formal Education for Sustainability: A Developing Countries Evidence Review

“…SWM plays a vital role in minimizing the impacts faced by municipal and rural areas due to increasing urbanization [9]. It has become a major environmental challenge in developing countries due to the economic growth and the acceleration of consumption, which caused an expansion in SW generation.…”

Renewable Waste-to-Energy in Southeast Asia: Status, Challenges, Opportunities, and Selection of Waste-to-Energy Technologies

“…As a result, there are some difficulties in collecting updated data about their MSW management systems and waste-to-energy sectors; most of these data are not fully accessible. Therefore, the data related to the study were collected, to a feasible extent, from previous research papers [13,17,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38], review papers [9,[39][40][41], policy reports by the World Bank [1], the United Nations Environment Programme [12,42], the International Energy Agency [3,7], the International Renewable Energy Agency [43,44], the World Energy Council [15], and other accessible reports. Then, the study synthesized, analyzed, and evaluated data about waste resources, current waste management, and waste-to-energy utilization in Southeast Asian countries in order to highlight a comparison of MSW management systems and the status of waste-to-energy processes among the countries.…”

“…As described in Figure 4, the most common waste-to-energy technologies in the developing world include [2,[15][16][17];…”

“…Nowadays, most Southeast Asian countries are facing several issues related to waste management, such as the increasing annual waste generation that has required more waste disposal sites, the scarcity of land areas, environmental pollution, and growth in energy demand [4,5,7,27]. Since these issues are especially important to be tackled in Southeast Asia, waste-to-energy technologies can play an essential role in sustainable waste management and the relief of environmental matters [17,25,26]. Meanwhile, some aspects such as regulation, finance, and technological suitability should be carefully considered to develop the waste-to-energy sector in the region [2,12,15,16,18,24].…”

“…Several studies have, to a reasonable extent, overviewed, analyzed, and evaluated the waste management and waste-to-energy sectors in Southeast Asian countries [1,28], but most have focused on the waste-to-energy sector in specific countries such as Thailand [29,30], Malaysia [31][32][33], Vietnam [17], and Myanmar [13]. Despite some issues such as public perception, public-private partnerships, all stakeholder involvement, funding, and climate factors, some Southeast Asian countries have made a reasonably successful step toward waste-to-energy technologies.…”