In 2025, a 10 m2 waste sorting facility was installed in the Hanoi Opera House area, developed by Thien Y Energy and Environment Company. This was the first smart waste sorting facility to be piloted in Hanoi, with the expectation of supporting waste sorting from the initial stages, reducing pressure on collection, transportation, and processing. After a period of time, the sorting facility was dismantled. While the model generated media attention, it likely served more as a technology showcase than a truly effective waste collection point in urban waste management.
For many years, Hanoi has had no shortage of waste sorting models. Previously, 23 wards in 5 of the city's old districts began piloting waste sorting into 4 groups, with the goal of expanding it to all 30 districts, counties, and towns by 2026. However, reality shows that these models have not created sustainable change. During communication campaigns, people did sort their waste, but afterwards, it was still collected together, the collection vehicles remained traditional, and the collection points were not standardized, so everything seemed to revert to the original state.
At the end of 2025, Hanoi issued new regulations on household solid waste management, adjusting waste sorting down to three groups: reusable and recyclable waste; food waste; and other household solid waste, including bulky waste, hazardous waste, and the remainder.
According to the new regulations, for household waste, food waste containers must be green and airtight to prevent leakage and odor dispersion; other waste containers must be gray; and hazardous waste must be stored in separate containers that are corrosion-resistant, waterproof, and leak-proof.
Notably, households and individuals must provide their own bags for solid household waste, seal the bags tightly, and drain off any liquid before disposal. In principle, this regulation aligns with modern management requirements, but it will create a new cost burden for residents.
Ms. Vu Thi Anh, from Dong Da ward, Hanoi, believes that residents do not object to waste sorting, but daily implementation requires reasonable costs or support, and most importantly, the sorted waste must not be mixed back into the original collection bin. "If a family has to buy many different types of bags, and has already put in the effort to sort, but the garbage truck still collects everything together in the end, it's both time-consuming and costly," Ms. Anh shared.
Furthermore, the regulation requiring each commune and ward to have at least one collection point for bulky waste places considerable pressure on inner-city areas with high population density, narrow streets, and limited public land. Therefore, for inner-city areas, it is necessary to study models for scheduled collection, timed collection, or collection by residential cluster, combined with the publication of phone numbers and applications for registration to allow residents to proactively hand over bulky waste.
It should also be noted that Decree 45/2022/ND-CP, which stipulates administrative penalties for violations in the field of environmental protection and takes effect from January 1, 2025, will impose fines of up to VND 1,000,000 for households and individuals who fail to sort solid household waste according to regulations. This will help people adjust their habits. However, in reality, no cases of penalties for not sorting waste at source have been recorded to date.
According to Mr. Ta Van Tuong, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Environment, the amount of solid household waste generated and collected and transported in the city is currently about 7,600-8,000 tons per day. The characteristics of this type of waste are its very large volume, continuous generation, spatial dispersion, and diverse composition, putting increasing pressure on the infrastructure for collection, transportation, and treatment.
Currently, the Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Environment is continuing to review and assess the current situation and develop proposals for waste management planning, which include several key solutions: Identifying waste sorting at source as a fundamental solution, crucial for improving the efficiency of waste collection, transportation, and treatment, while also creating conditions to promote recycling and the development of a circular economy .
The implementation of waste sorting will follow a roadmap aligned with the available technical infrastructure and management capacity, ensuring feasibility and effectiveness in practice. Based on this sorting, the city aims to strengthen waste recovery, reuse, and recycling, gradually developing treatment models that promote a green and circular economy, reducing reliance on landfills, enhancing the resource value of waste, and limiting secondary pollution. Simultaneously, the city will strictly manage recyclable waste streams, gradually reorganizing, rectifying, and eliminating outdated, manual, and informal recycling practices that do not meet environmental protection requirements.
Waste sorting and recycling are implemented in conjunction with the standardization of the collection and transportation system, additional investment in transfer stations and standardized waste reception points, gradually replacing unsightly temporary collection points; at the same time, modernizing enclosed collection and transportation vehicles to reduce secondary pollution and odor generation.
The city aims to make incineration the primary technology for energy recovery by 2030, ensuring waste security and safety while gradually reducing landfill rates and optimizing transportation distances. After 2030, the city will gradually shift its focus to recovery and recycling; forming recycling and treatment complexes based on a green and circular economy model; and simultaneously researching, testing, and investing in advanced and modern treatment technologies in the long term.
Source: https://nhandan.vn/loay-hoay-phan-loai-rac-tai-nguon-post962714.html
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