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In Da Nang and Ha Long, Vietnam and in Vientiane, Laos, there was interest by local authorities in separating and composting waste in order to reduce environmental and health problems at the local landfills and to produce a soil conditioner for local agricultural use. To assist in the planning of composting projects, three studies were carried out to estimate waste quantities and composition. 1. A 9-day audit of waste from 45 vendors in a market in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. The total quantity of waste and the quantity in each of nine categories were estimated for each of six different types of vendors. 2. A 7-day audit of waste disposed by three hotels in the tourist area of Ha Long, Vietnam. Waste quantities were estimated in total, on a per guest basis, and in three main categories: compostables, recyclables and miscellaneous. 3. A 7-day audit of waste collected from 74 households in Da Nang, the fourth largest city in Vietnam. Waste from each household was separated into compostable and non-compostable waste. Over 60% of each waste source comprised compostable waste and this was considered significant enough to warrant further planning of composting operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a model of the relationship between the solid waste recycling activities of industrial-commercial-institutional (ICI) firms and two sets of explanatory variables. Theoretical model for the study; Recycling revenues and cost; Description of the case study; Collection of the data for the study; Construction of the model; Results of the study; Implications of the policy; Conclusions of the study.

Abstract: The production efficiency and shadow prices of three environmental outputs (BOD, COD, and SS) of 63 household-level paper-recycling units, from a recycling craft village in Vietnam, are assessed A two-stage procedure, linear programming and stochastic estimation, is used to estimate output distance function. Social capital as a production factor and environmental outputs are included in the output distance function. Results indicate that production efficiencies could potentially be improved by 28%. There is a substantial variation in the shadow prices of environmental outputs among the production units of different types of paper products. Furthermore, the average shadow prices of the three environmental outputs are all positive. This indicates a potential for improving environmental quality though introducing pollution-prevention methods to paper-recycling production processes in Vietnam (e.g., recirculation of wastewater), and suggests that it may be inappropriate to restrict the shadow prices of environmental outputs to be non-positive for the analysis of some production processes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]