KALDEWEI and WWF GERMANY present final report on the model project “Long An plastic waste” in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

KALDEWEI, Ahlen, December 2022 – A project close to the heart of KALDEWEI  provider of circular sanitary products is entering the final straight. The company has been working in partnership with the nature conservation organisation WWF Germany since 2017.  focussing on the reduction of plastic waste in the oceans. Thanks to KALDEWEI’s support, the “Long An plastic waste” model project in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam was able to be carried out. This project will ensure a significant reduction in the amount of plastic waste entering the sea.  Establishing  a waste management system with professional waste separation on site was a prerequisite, enabling an increasedrecycling rate and reducing the amount of residual waste by over 50 percent. After five years, the project is now standing on its own two feet and is being continued by the provincial government. 

The local government of the province of Long An was quickly won over by the pilot project and supported the WWF in developing and implementing an improved waste management concept. “Separated waste collection will now be rolled out to the provincial capital of Long An and later to the entire province. This ensures that organic waste will be collected and composted separately. Recyclable plastic is sorted and the amount of residual waste is significantly reduced by means of separate collection,” says Dr. Bernhard Bauske, plastic waste expert at WWF, on the successful implementation of the project. For example, KALDEWEI and the nature conservation organisation financed the purchase of two light trucks with a payload capacity of 4.5 tons and 5.6 tons. Enabling six or ten roll containers to be transported at once and the effectiveness of waste collection significantly increased. 

“A fundamental analysis of the waste management situation could only be carried out at the beginning of the project thanks to the support of KALDEWEI. Based on this analysis, the model project started in Long An is now to be extended to the entire province. The results of this project have been presented in scientific publications and at the same time there is an exchange with other cities in Southeast Asia in order to share the experiences from the model project and to convey important insights. A sustainable basis has been laid for improving waste management, especially since new legal regulations in Vietnam stipulate that waste must be collected separately throughout the country from 2024,” explains Dr. Bauske.

KALDEWEI and the WWF draw a positive conclusion from the model project, in which the nature conservation organisation in the province of Long An in the Mekong Delta was able to demonstrate successfully that even labour-intensive separate collection of municipal waste with immediate secondary sorting by the municipal waste disposal employees is suitable for private households and small businesses. By means of intensive training of the households and businesses participating in the pilot project and through public relations work together with the authorities and local organisations, a permanent separation rate of 85 percent has been achieved. 

Source: Franz KALDEWEI GmbH & Co. KG. Copy requested.