Vietnam decrees mandatory recycling for certain businesses

Producers and importers engaged in certain businesses will have to compulsorily recycle their products starting January 1, 2024 under the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy.

Under the 2020 approved Law on Environmental Protection that sets a roadmap for EPR, producers and importers of tubes, tires, batteries, accumulators, lubricants and paper packaging will be responsible for recycling their products per required rates and other specifications.

In the first instance, the EPR applies to manufacturers that have total sales and services revenues of more than VND30 billion ($1.23 million) and businesses that have import values of over VND20 billion ($823,000) the preceding year.

Businesses must recycle products and packaging according to the required ratio of the total volume of goods sold and imported. The obligatory recycling rate is 5% for the tire industry, 8% for rechargeable batteries, 8-12% for accumulators, and 10-22% for packaging.

Businesses can opt for diverse solutions and products when recycling.

According to the EPR roadmap, the electrical and electronics industries will have to recycle products compulsorily starting January 1, 2025, and the deadline for the automobile and motorbike industries is January 2027.

OECD defines Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) as an environmental policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle. An EPR policy is characterized by:

(i). the shifting of responsibility (physically and/or economically; fully or partially) upstream toward the producer and away from municipalities; and

(ii). the provision of incentives to producers to take into account environmental considerations when designing their products.