Introduction
Materials and methods
Literature review
Interviews
Data using for calculation
E-waste recycling structure in Vietnam
Sources of e-waste in Vietnam
Products put on the domestic market
2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | Annual growth rate (%) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
TV | 14,848 | 17,800 | 21,338 | 25,609 | 30,756 | 36,960 | 44,442 | 20 |
PC | 2132 | 2540 | 3030 | 3619 | 4326 | 5177 | 6200 | 20 |
Mobile phones | 3498 | 3533 | 3569 | 3604 | 3641 | 3677 | 3714 | 1 |
Refrigerator | 3481 | 4127 | 4900 | 5826 | 6937 | 8269 | 9869 | 19 |
Air conditioner | 1367 | 1653 | 1998 | 2416 | 2921 | 3533 | 4272 | 21 |
Washing machine | 3140 | 3674 | 4307 | 5060 | 5955 | 7022 | 8294 | 18 |
E-waste from domestic
E-waste from transboundary movement
E-waste from electronic industries
E-waste treatment activities in Vietnam
Formal sector
Informal sector
Collection and transportation
Reuse and refurbishment
Dismantling and pre-processing
Appliance | Dismantling and pre-processing | Outputs | Emission and residues | Estimated data |
---|---|---|---|---|
Air conditioner | Manual dismantling to separate fan, housing, compressor, condenser and evaporation coils, copper wires, PCBs and other components (valve, controller, filter, …). Reusable parts (housing parts, motor, coils, …) can be reused. PCBs, metals and plastics are sold for exporting or recycling. Refrigerants are discharged to environment | PCBs Copper Aluminum Ferrous metal Plastics | Dust, refrigerant emitted into the air. Untradeable plastics | |
Cathode ray tube (CRT) TV | Manual dismantling to separate plastic housing, power supply, copper wires, PCBs and CRTs. Copper wires are burned or scrapped to extract copper. Plastic parts are partly ground and sold. CRT tubes are dismantled and sorted into ferrous, copper and glasses The CRT glass body is broken manually that leads to the release of fluorescent powder. Ferrous parts go to craft villages (e.g., Da Hoi craft village) and the glass is crumbled into 3 × 4 cm pieces then exported | PCBs Copper Aluminum Ferrous metal Plastics | Dust Fluorescent powder Untradeable plastics | 30 TVs/dismantler.day (17″ CRT TV) About 20–25 % are crumbled |
Electric fans | Manual dismantling to separate electric motor, copper, copper wires, housing, PCBs and plastic fan, buttons. Reusable parts (motor, plastic parts, …) can be reused. PCBs, metals and plastics are sold for exporting or recycling | Copper Aluminum Ferrous metal Plastics PCBs | Dust Untradeable plastics | |
Lead-acid batteries | Lead-acid batteries are recycled at few craft villages in Vietnam. They are dismantled manually into plastic housing (cleaned and ground, then sold for plastic exporting or recycling), acid (discharged to environment) and lead electrodes | Plastic Lead electrodes | Acid | Recycling capacity: 60 tons of lead-acid batteries per day in the North of Vietnam and 120 tons of lead-acid batteries per day for whole country |
Personal computers (PCs) and laptops | Manual dismantling to separate power supply, fans, housing, copper wires, hard disk, PCBs and other components (LCD, CD/DVD drivers, sound and video card, mouse and keyboard). Reusable parts (main board, sound card, video card, DVD driver, transistors, …) can be reused. PCBs, metals and plastics are sold for recycling | PCBs Copper Aluminum Ferrous metal Plastics | Dust Untradeable plastics | |
Radio, CD/DVD players | Manual dismantling to separate power supply, housing, copper wires, PCBs and other components. Reusable parts (main board, motor, display, transistors, …) can be reused. PCBs, metals and plastics are sold for exporting or recycling | PCBs Copper Aluminum Ferrous metal Plastics | Dust Untradeable plastics | 50–70 kg/dismantler.day |
Refrigerator | Manual dismantling to separate compressor, housing, heat exchanger, copper wires, PCBs, insolation material and other components. Reusable parts (housing parts, compressor, plastic trays, … can be reused. PCBs, metals and plastics are sold for recycling. Isolation material is collected and sold or dumped. Refrigerants are discharged to environment | PCBs Copper Aluminum Ferrous metal Plastics | Dust Refrigerant emitted into the air Untradeable plastics | |
Washing machine | Manual dismantling to separate motor, drum, housing part, PCBs, pump, copper wires and other components (valve, hose, etc.). Reusable parts (control board, housing parts, motor, pump, … can be reused. PCBs, metals and plastics are sold for exporting and recycling | PCBs Copper Aluminum Ferrous metal Plastics | Dust Untradeable plastics | 1–2 pieces/dismantler.day |
Other appliances (phones, cell phones, mosquito racks, photocopy machines, barcode readers, etc.) | Manual dismantling to separate power supply, housing, copper wires, PCBs, ferrous parts (trays, net), plastic parts and other components. PCBs, metals and plastics are sold for exporting and recycling | PCBs Copper Aluminum Ferrous metal Plastics | Dust Untradeable plastics | 500 kg of PCBs from phones and cell phones per day 1.2 tons of PCBs from photocopy machines and barcode readers per day 1 ton of PCBs from scanners per year 10 tons of PCBs from TV displays, phone power parts and electrical mosquito rackets per day |
End processing
Inputs | Processing | Outputs | Emission and residues | Estimated data |
---|---|---|---|---|
PCBs | Gold fingers and gold-containing chips are treated by hydrometallurgical process for gold recovery (few small-sized workshops scattered in Bac Ninh and Hai Phong) PCBs without electronic components go through the fine grinding step, then separating using vibration screen under water flow. The residues (epoxy resin) after mechanical process are sold for producing plywood or ultralight bricks or dumping | Gold Copper | Residues (epoxy resin) Wastewater with toxic chemicals (acid) | NA |
Iron and steel | Recycled at some craft villages in which the technologies can be (1) coal furnace (traditional furnace) that was used for a very long time, and (2) electrical furnace (induction furnace), mostly comes from China to produce steel billets From steel billets, there are other processes to produce iron wires, construction steel, etc., and they decide the shape of steel billets (square or flat) during the casting step | Steel billets | Air emissions (CO2, SO2, NOx, dust) Solid waste (slags) Waste water | Demand for steel scrap in Vietnam is about 2 million tons per year in which 600,000 tons are from domestic sources [4] There is no estimation on proportion of the ferrous scraps from e-waste because all ferrous parts from e-waste have been mixed with other scrap sources and sold to collectors |
Copper | Recycled at several traditional copper craft villages to make products for decorating and worshiping purposes (flowers, vases, and jars), copper statues such as Dai Bai village, Quang Bo in Bac Ninh province, Ngu Xa village in Hanoi, and several villages in the South The copper scraps used as input materials are a mixture of coppers from e-waste, used gears, faucets, and wires from domestic sources | Copper products | Air emissions (CO2, SO2, NOx, metal fume, dust) Solid waste (coal slag) Waste water Wasted clay (from molds) | |
Aluminum | Recycled at several craft villages (Binh Yen village in Nam Dinh province, Man Xa village in Bac Ninh province, etc.) to produce motorcycle parts, cooking pots,… from aluminum scraps (equipment parts, wires, cans, etc.) as technology at craft villages are used small coal furnace in batch | Aluminum ingots Aluminum products | Air emissions (CO2, SO2, NOx, metal fume, dust) Solid waste (aluminum slag, coal slag) Waste water containing chemicals for surface treatment processes | |
Lead | Recycled mainly from lead-acid batteries. At craft villages (e.g., Dong Mai craft village in Hung Yen province), leads are melted using coal furnace to make the lead ingots. Only few smelters have an off-gas treatment system (settling chamber, filter bag) to recover dust | Lead ingots | Air emission (lead dust, lead fume, CO2, SO2, NOx, etc.) | Recycling capacity: 60 tons of lead-acid batteries per day in the North of Vietnam and 120 tons of lead-acid batteries per day for whole country (interview data) |
Plastics | Recycled at Khoai village, Minh Khai village (Hung Yen province) and many other Small and Medium-Size Enterprises Each plastic recycler recycled only 2 or 3 types of plastics. The rest of plastics are sold to other workshops at the same craft villages or to other craft villages Plastics are treated via 2 processes: (1) making secondary plastic pellets from plastic parts as plastic pellets are the main inputs to make final products and (2) producing final products from the plastic pellets Depending on the final products, the original plastic pellets and color-making plastic pellets are added and they decide which technologies are used such as blow molding to produce plastic bags, injection molding to produce machine parts, plastic sinks, plastic chair; spinning for plastic fiber making; etc | Secondary plastic pellets, Plastic products | Dust Burned plastics Solid waste Wastewater | Capacity of producing reproduced plastic from a plastic recycling craft village in Hung Yen province in November 2014 (pellets and products) are about 20 tons per day and the quantity of plastics exported to China is about 10–12 tons per day (interview data) |
E-waste recycling activities in Vietnam in comparison with other countries in Asia
Legal framework
Country | Development of EPR | References |
---|---|---|
Cambodia | – | |
China | 2004: Draft of Ordinance on the Management of Waste Household Electrical and Electronic Products Recycling and Disposal came to public 2006: Measures for Administration of the Pollution Control of Electronic Information Products (China RoHS) was enacted (became effective in 03. 2007) 2006: Technical Policy for the Prevention of Pollution from Waste Electrical and Electronic Products came in force 2007: Administrative Measures for the Prevention of Environmental Pollution by Electronic Waste was enacted (effective in 01.2008) 2009: Regulation on the Administration of the Recovery and Disposal of WEEE (China WEEE) (effective in 2011) 2012: Regulatory Measures for Collection and Disposal Fund of Waste Electrical Appliances and Electronic Products was public | |
India | 2008: Management of e-Waste, Guidelines 2010: E-waste management and handling rules was promulgated (effective in 2011) | |
Indonesia | 2008: Solid Waste Management Act 18/2008 was enacted. A specific article on EPR is under preparation under this Act | |
Japan | 1991: Law for the Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources was promulgated 1995: Law for the Promotion of Separate Collection and Recycling of Containers and Packaging (Packaging Recycling Law) was enacted 1998: Specified Home Appliance Recycling Law (SHARL) was enacted (and came into force in 2001). Targeted home appliances were Air conditioners, TV sets, electric refrigerators and freezers, electric washing machines and clothes dryers (Flat-screen TV sets and clothes dryers were added in April 2009) | |
Korea | 1992: waste deposit–refund system was introduced. TVs and washing machine were included 2003: EPR system was enforced. Primary targets: TVs, PCs, refrigerators, washing machine and air conditioners 2005: mobile phones, fax machine, printers, copiers and audio equipment were added 2007: “the Act on the Resources Recycling of WEEE and End-of-Life Vehicles” (WEEE Act) was adopted | |
Lao PDR | – | |
Malaysia | 2007: Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007 was enforced with a specific article on take-back and deposit–refund 2010: Classification of Used Electrical and Electronic Equipment, Guidelines (2nd Edition) was public | |
Thailand | 2007: WEEE Strategic Plan was promulgated. The Act on Economic Instruments for Environmental Management (EI Act) was drafted | |
Vietnam | 2013: Decision No. 50/2013 of the Prime Minister on prescribing retrieval and disposal of discarded products was approved and took effect 2015: Decree No. 38/2015/ND-CP dated 24.04.2015 on Waste and Scrap management 2015: Decision No. 16/2015/QD-TTg on the regulation of retrieval and disposal of discarded products, take effect from 01.07.2016 |
Sources of e-waste
Country | E-waste generated (kg/inh.) |
---|---|
Cambodia | 1.0 |
China | 4.4 |
India | 1.3 |
Indonesia | 3.0 |
Japan | 17.3 |
Korea | 15.9 |
Lao PDR | 1.2 |
Malaysia | 7.6 |
Thailand | 6.4 |
Vietnam | 1.3 |
Source of e-waste | Country | Factor | Period | References |
---|---|---|---|---|
TV sets | Cambodia | 6 | 2009–2019 | |
China | 1.5–2 | 2009–2020 | [9] [9] | |
India | 1.5–2 | 2009–2020 | ||
Vietnam | 13 | 2006–2020 | [3] | |
Mobile phones | Cambodia | 4 | 2009–2019 | |
China | 18 | 2007–2020 | [9] [9] | |
India | 7 | 2007–2020 | ||
Vietnam | 7 | 2007–2020 | [3] | |
Refrigerators | Cambodia | 3 | 2009–2019 | |
India | 2–3 | 2007–2020 | [9] | |
Vietnam | 17 | 2006–2020 | [3] |