The number of electronic waste in Viet Nam has been increasing due to high demands on electronic products. American enterprises HP and Apple on April 6 launched the Vietnam Recycles programme to collect and recycle used, end-of-life and broken electronic equipments in Viet Nam for free. — Photo nld.com.vn

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — The Vietnam Recycling Platform on April 6 launched the Vietnam Recycles programme to collect and recycle used, end-of-life and broken electronic equipments in Viet Nam for free.

The platform is a consortium established by American technology giants Hewlett-Packard and Apple.

The programme helps manufacturers and customers to follow regulations on collecting and recycling of waste, which were issued by the Prime Minister on August 9, 2013, and took effect from January 1, 2015.

It also aims to raise the responsibilities of manufacturers for collecting and recycling end-of-life electronic products and electrical household appliances.

The electronic waste will be recycled in an environment-friendly way to ensure that maximum resources are collected after the recycling.

Since the end of January 2015, the programme has been providing free e-waste collection and recycling services to governmental agencies, organisations and enterprises in Ha Noi and HCM City. From July, the people living in the two largest cities will be offered free services.

According to the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, the amount of e-waste in Viet Nam has been increasing due to the development of technology and high demands made on electronic equipments. However, the people have limited awareness of e-waste.

"This is a meaningful programme for Viet Nam," Deputy Director of the Vietnam Environment Administration Hoang Duong Tung said. "There have been several waste recycling programmes held in the past few years, but generally, they have been small in scale and were carried out for a short period. People are not fully aware of e-waste, and financial resources are limited for building a standardised e-waste recycling system. More importantly, there is a lack of long-term commitment towards environment-friendly projects."

"Therefore, we highly appreciate the initiative of the Vietnam Recycling Platform and the sustainable values the organisation aims to create for a better environment in Viet Nam. We believe positive results from the programme will bring positive change for the Vietnamese environment," he said. — VNS