Zero Waste and Circular Tourism · Organics management · Reuse and refill · Community learning
Local operating infrastructure for circular tourism and Zero Waste community in Hội An.
From environmental commitment to a system that can work every day. A destination does not become Zero Waste because more bins are installed or because individual businesses separate their waste. It changes when prevention, separation, collection, recovery, reuse and organics management are connected through responsible local operators.
Hội An Eco Hub is a community-based operating and learning centre in Cẩm Kim, across the Thu Bồn River from Hội An Ancient Town. Operating from a reactivated public facility, it brings together source separation, material recovery, organics management, reuse and refill, business services, community participation and practical, hands-on learning.
The Hub addresses a specific implementation gap: after a household, hotel or restaurant separates a material, who checks its quality, keeps it separate, finds an appropriate destination, records what happens and pays for the work required? Hội An Eco Hub provides a physical base and an accountable operator for these responsibilities.
It complements Hội An’s municipal waste-management system by building the local, source-based and decentralised pathways required for a more circular and regenerative destination.
For public agencies, development partners, tourism businesses, schools and research organisations, the Eco Hub is more than a site to visit. It is a working platform through which local systems can be operated, tested, improved and supported over time.
Zero Waste works at three connected levels
Zero Waste is not recycling, nor does it mean that there is no waste on sight. The Zero Waste International Alliance defines it as the conservation of resources through responsible production, consumption, reuse and recovery—without burning or releases that threaten environmental or human health. Its principles shift attention from end-of-pipe disposal to how products are designed, purchased, used and kept in circulation.
At the tourism-business level, this responsibility begins before anything reaches a bin. Hotels, restaurants and tour operators need to examine procurement, eliminate unnecessary and single-use items, prevent food waste, introduce reuse systems, separate remaining materials correctly and measure their results. The GSTC Hotel Standard places waste prevention and reuse ahead of recycling and recovery, while also requiring measurable targets, staff responsibilities and responsible downstream pathways. Similarly, the UNEP and UN Tourism-led Global Tourism Plastics Initiative calls on tourism organisations to eliminate unnecessary plastics, move from single-use to reuse, engage suppliers, invest in recovery systems and report progress.
At the community level, these individual business actions need accessible local systems through which they can continue. Households, businesses, waste workers, recyclers, farmers, social enterprises and local authorities each hold part of the solution. The ZWIA Global Principles for Zero Waste Communities therefore emphasise whole-community participation, waste assessment, reuse and repair, source-separated collection, recycling and composting infrastructure, locally operated enterprises and the return of organic resources to soil. Community Zero Waste is not simply public awareness or voluntary clean-up. It requires services, infrastructure, viable livelihoods and clear responsibilities.
At the destination level, Zero Waste becomes a shared management responsibility. The GSTC Destination Standard calls for destinations to measure and report waste, set reduction targets, support tourism and waste-service enterprises, provide collection systems that separate different material streams, reduce single-use items and ensure that residual waste is handled safely. An individual hotel can improve its own operations, but it cannot establish these destination-wide conditions alone.
The three levels are therefore interdependent. Businesses control what they purchase and how they operate. Communities provide local knowledge, participation, services and recovery pathways. Destination institutions create the enabling framework, infrastructure and coordination. If one level is missing, responsibility is simply transferred to the next actor.
Hoi An Eco Hub operates between these levels. Its intermediary role is to help business commitments connect with community capability—and to turn separate actions into practical evidence, services and relationships that can support a wider destination transition.
Why this place matters
Hội An’s waste challenge is closely connected to the way the destination lives, trades and receives visitors. The 2020 municipal solid-waste audit published by IUCN found that households and businesses generated 85% of the city’s municipal solid waste. Organic material accounted for 66.77%—approximately 56 tonnes each day. Separation remained incomplete, and recoverable materials continued to enter mixed-waste routes.
These figures reveal substantial recovery potential, but potential is not an operating system. A hotel can separate food scraps, but the material still needs contamination control, dependable collection, suitable processing and a use for the recovered nutrients. A household can store recyclables, but small quantities of low-value material may not justify transport. A reuse pilot can demonstrate a good idea but stop when return logistics, cleaning responsibilities or recurring finance are missing.
International standards recognise the same implementation need. The current GSTC Hotel Standard expects hotels to measure, reduce, separate and provide responsible pathways for waste, including food waste. The GSTC Destination Standard extends that responsibility to destination-level measurement, multi-stream collection, business support and reduction of single-use items. Standards establish the direction; local operating capacity determines whether it can happen.
Cẩm Kim: a constraint and an opportunity
Cẩm Kim is a community of homes, gardens, farms, craft traditions and small businesses across the river from Hội An’s urban and tourism centre. This river-separated geography creates a practical constraint. The conventional municipal model depends on waste being collected and transported out of the community through the centralised system operated by Hội An Public Works. Moving most materials through a single external route creates additional logistical dependence and can make consistent collection and transport more difficult.
The same condition creates an entry point for a more source-based and decentralised system: prevention and separation by households and businesses; local treatment of suitable organics; community-based reuse and recovery; and municipal or specialised transport for residual waste and materials requiring other forms of handling.
This approach complements the municipal system. It can reduce what must be transported as mixed waste, improve the quality of separated materials and create local roles around collection, checking, processing, recovery and education. Cẩm Kim’s proximity to both the tourism economy and productive land creates useful connections—but those connections only become circular when standards, equipment, labour, responsibilities and finance are in place.
From an underused facility to shared operating infrastructure
Hội An Eco Hub grew from more than a decade of work across Hội An in community waste separation, composting, tourism-business engagement, reuse and refill, organics recovery and dedicated pathways for hospitality materials.
In 2026, Hội An Ward assigned REED to operate an underused public facility in Cẩm Kim as Hội An Eco Hub. The facility is connected to the ward’s source-separation plan covering 1,222 households and small businesses.
Its significance lies in more than reusing a building. The Hub creates a shared operating point where public mandate, community participation, business responsibility, technical processes and local livelihoods can meet.
- Public authorities provide public infrastructure, planning, coordination and the mandate for community-level delivery.
- Households and businesses prevent avoidable waste and determine separation quality at source.
- REED develops technical pathways, advises businesses, coordinates partners and manages operations under defined conditions.
- Green Youth Collective connects the Hub with community practitioners, farms, learning and the wider place-based regeneration process.
- Refillables Đong Đầy, local workers, farmers, recyclers and processors provide specialised services and onward pathways.
This public–private–community structure is central to the model. “Community-led” does not mean asking communities to solve institutional, technical or market failures alone. It means local practitioners hold real roles, knowledge and agency within a system in which authority, cost and responsibility are more clearly shared.
The intermediary system at work
The work begins before materials reach the Hub and continues after they leave.
1. Prevent waste and redesign at source
Waste audits and operational reviews identify where unnecessary materials enter purchasing, kitchens, housekeeping, rooms, events and guest services. Businesses can then prevent avoidable waste, improve forecasting and storage, introduce reuse-refill options, assign staff responsibilities and design separation around what downstream operators can actually accept.
2. Keep separated materials usable
Materials entering the Hub’s pathways are inspected, weighed and separated again where necessary. Clean materials with established destinations are distinguished from contaminated, complex or low-value items needing another partner—or still lacking a viable local route. Recurring problems are recorded and communicated back to the source, making separation a quality system rather than simply a set of labelled bins.
3. Reconnect suitable organics with food and soil systems
Source-separated kitchen and garden organics are managed according to their characteristics, safety, season, staffing, equipment and intended use. Pathways include composting, beneficial-microorganism processes and black soldier fly systems where technically appropriate. Recovered nutrients can support connected farms and gardens, linking the Hub with GYC’s Closed-loop Farming and Agroecology work.
During documented 2024–2025 operations, the organics system recorded a reference capacity of approximately 200 kg per day per operating worker/farmer, with technical supervisory support.
4. Build reuse, refill and material-specific pathways
Refillables Đong Đầy contributes specialised knowledge in reuse-refill operations. Other established tourism-material pathways include Soap for Hope, through which more than one tonne of discarded hotel soap has been recovered since 2018, and Linens for Life, through which more than two tonnes of retired hospitality linen have entered local sewing and upcycling pathways. Additional routes for used cooking oil, spent coffee grounds and selected dry materials are also under operations.
Each pathway must be assessed through material quality, health and safety, operating cost, recurring demand and a credible use for the output.
5. Turn operational records into better decisions for more responsible production and consumption
The Hub records quantities, contamination, rejected materials, processing conditions and recurring problems. This evidence helps businesses improve procurement and staff practice, shows where services need investment and identifies materials requiring wider producer or policy action. Authorities, workers, students and researchers can examine the same material flow from different positions and improve the system through real operating evidence.
The Eco Hub does not process every type of waste. Hazardous, specialised and residual materials require appropriate municipal or specialist handling. Naming these limits is part of an honest Zero Waste system: a material does not become circular simply because it has been collected.
A track record
The Eco Hub is relatively new as a shared physical centre in Cam Kim, but the capability behind it has been built through years of work with businesses, communities, public actors and technical partners.
- 2020–2023: more than 50 tourism businesses signed commitments connected to plastic reduction and Zero Waste practices.
- 2021–2023: more than 100 tourism businesses engaged through training, technical advice or site-based learning.
- 2018–present: more than one tonne of discarded hotel soap and more than two tonnes of retired hotel linen recovered through dedicated pathways.
- 2024–2025: documented organics operations established the reference processing capacity described above.
- 2026: an underused public facility was assigned for operation as Hội An Eco Hub, connected with a source-separation plan covering 1,222 households and small businesses.
The figures show that local operating capability, business participation, material pathways and public–community infrastructure have been built far enough to support a more ambitious next stage.
Explore GYC ecosystem’s wider impact and evidence
What this place makes visible
Hội An Eco Hub makes the hidden work of circularity visible. Zero Waste depends on procurement decisions, separation standards, collection routines, trained and fairly supported operators, infrastructure, viable end uses, data, public coordination and finance.
It also shows why a physical place matters. The building alone is not the solution. Its value comes from the responsibilities, services, relationships and learning processes that can be held there consistently.
Waste does not disappear when it leaves a hotel, household or shop. A local circular system begins when responsibility continues.
Discuss a partnership
We welcome discussions with public agencies, development partners, hospitality businesses, schools, universities, researchers, technical organisations and responsible producers seeking to strengthen practical Zero Waste and circular-economy capacity in tourism destinations.
Partnership enquiries: Hanh Vu, Founder and Director
hanh@greenyouthcollective.org · reed.regenerative@gmail.com · WhatsApp: +84 978 134 277
For the system methodology behind this place, read Working Model: Circular Tourism & Zero Waste.