HANOI, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Despite being instrumental in fostering sustainable agriculture practices, the circular economy model (CEM) remains uncommon among cooperatives due to high upfront costs in Vietnam, local media reported on Monday.
Cooperatives have been aware of the financial benefits a green approach could offer them. However, high initial outlays hinder their efforts, local newspaper Vietnam News reported.
A cooperative in Son La province has saved nearly 500 million Vietnamese dong (21,000 U.S. dollars) in annual costs by recycling its agricultural waste.
The cooperative has toyed with embracing CEM to move one step further in its cost-saving strategy but has not taken the plunge owing to high initial outlays. CEM requires new waste-treatment facilities that are far beyond its means, the newspaper said.
According to Dinh Thi Hang, chairwoman of the Ha Anh Cooperative, an average waste-treatment facility required for a farm of 10,000 pigs normally entails an initial outlay of about 500 million dong, which not many cooperatives could afford.
Some cooperatives have attempted to take favorable loans to finance their CEM efforts but got little results. The limited availability of such loans makes bank-financed CEM challenging for these producers, the newspaper cited Hang.
Of the 157 million tons of waste in Vietnam's agriculture sector, merely 50 percent of that in the forestry sub-sector gets recycled. The figures are higher in crop farming and livestock, 52 percent and 75 percent, respectively.
Vietnam has set the goals to reuse, recycle, and treat 85 percent of plastic waste by 2025.
By 2030, it will have 50 percent of urban municipal solid wastes collected and treated to standards via circular economy models, and 100 percent of organic waste in urban areas and 70 percent of organic waste in rural areas recycled. ■
