GreenU Expert Guides Hai Phong's Rural Communes on Turning Organic Waste into Humus: Over 3,300 Tonnes of Waste a Day Need Solutions at the Source
On the morning of 8 October in An Lao commune, Hai Phong, the city's Department of Agriculture and Environment worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP Viet Nam) to hold a conference on source separation, collection and transport of household solid waste, and on treating food and organic waste. Leaders, dedicated officers and waste collection units from 67 communes and wards across the city attended. Dương Trần Anh Tuấn, MSc, an expert of GreenU, was among the experts who directly answered local questions on techniques and end uses for organic waste.
The pressure of 3,300 tonnes a day
According to Hai Phong's Department of Agriculture and Environment, the city generates about 3,300 tonnes of household solid waste a day: roughly 2,000 tonnes in urban areas and 1,300 tonnes in rural areas. Hard-to-degrade plastics and plastic bags keep rising fast. The city is shifting from "collect, then landfill or treat centrally" to "manage at the point of generation": reduction, separation and recycling along circular economy lines, in line with Directive 16 of the Municipal Party Standing Committee and Plan 331 of the City People's Committee. The Department has issued technical guidance on separating and treating organic waste, along with a model regulation and a set of indicators for monitoring implementation.
Turning organic waste into a resource
According to Mr. Tuấn, the goal of treating food waste at households and rural household clusters is to produce nutrient-rich "organic humus" for use on site, not to produce "commercial organic fertiliser" for sale. People therefore do not face strict commercial testing standards and can make and use it themselves. After composting, organic waste shrinks by about 80%: one tonne of waste leaves only 100-200 kg of humus. That is not even enough for households and localities to apply to gardens and public greenery, so there is no worry about surplus.
Key technical points
The key to successful composting is controlling moisture by mixing in dry, carbon-rich material such as rice straw or sawdust in suitable proportions. Without dry material the waste turns soggy, smells and spoils the batch, so communes should encourage people to stop burning straw after harvest and instead collect and store it for composting. For clusters of households handling large volumes, waste and straw must be shredded so decomposition runs twice as fast, cutting the cycle from 3-6 months to a few weeks and saving pit and yard space. People were also shown how to ferment kitchen scraps and fruit peels into bio-enzyme cleaners for household use.
"The steps are very detailed and easy to apply. After the conference we will roll out the model right away, easing the load on our collection teams and gaining clean humus to improve our soil." - Ms. Lê Thị Minh, An Duong ward, a participant.
A Department representative stressed that source separation is a hard task that takes persistence, public consensus and the involvement of the whole political system; the experts will keep accompanying localities and answering problems that arise in practice.
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