From managing waste to redesigning the systems that produce it
Brief: Tourism waste does not begin at the bin. It begins with what businesses buy and how services are designed, long before an item reaches a bin. Circular Tourism & Zero Waste turns this upstream principle into an operating model: prevent waste first, build reuse and refill services, separate remaining materials well, and create traceable pathways for organics and other recoverable resources. It connects businesses, public actors, suppliers, local operators and end users through defined roles, infrastructure, quality controls, data and finance. In Hội An, Hội An Eco Hub is the main operating and learning anchor, with REED providing technical and implementation functions, GYC convening the wider ecosystem, and Refillables Đong Đầy contributing as an independent partner. Some components are operating, while others are being piloted or developed as part of a longer transition towards a more circular destination.
Waste starts with a purchase, not a bin
A destination cannot recycle its way out of a system designed for disposal.
Bottled water, miniature toiletries, takeaway packaging, food surplus and short-lived event materials enter the waste stream because of decisions made through procurement and service design. By the time they reach a bin, most opportunities to prevent them have already passed.
The first questions are therefore operational:
- Was the item necessary?
- Could the service work without it?
- Could a reusable or refillable system replace it?
- Could its useful life be extended?
- Can any unavoidable material be separated and recovered through a safe local pathway?
This sequence follows the Zero Waste International Alliance hierarchy, which places rethink, redesign, reduction and reuse ahead of recycling and disposal. The UNEP-led Global Tourism Plastics Initiative similarly calls on tourism businesses to eliminate unnecessary plastics, move towards reuse, work with suppliers and help strengthen recovery services.
These frameworks establish the direction. Local operating capacity determines whether businesses can follow it.
Commitments expose the operating gap
Awareness is rarely the only barrier.
In 2021, 36 Hội An businesses committed to a plastic-waste reduction framework developed through an IUCN-supported initiative (led by REED) with local government, the tourism association and partners. The businesses supported the direction but identified practical constraints: weak source-separation arrangements, limited organics processing, difficulty finding alternatives and a lack of benchmarks and incentives.
These are operating problems.
Waste separation inside a hotel achieves little if collection mixes the materials again. Reusable packaging needs a return, cleaning and redistribution service. Organic waste needs contamination controls, reliable collection, suitable processing and a real use for the output. A business target needs someone to monitor performance and a budget to pay for the work.
Circular Tourism & Zero Waste addresses these connections. It treats waste prevention and resource recovery as services that must be designed, operated, financed and improved—not as a campaign that ends after staff training.
How the model works
Every material needs a verifiable pathway.
For each material flow, the model works through six decisions.
1. Prevent what does not need to exist
Businesses examine where materials enter their operations: purchasing, kitchens, housekeeping, rooms, events and guest services.
Waste audits and operational reviews help identify unnecessary products, excess purchasing, avoidable food waste and service formats that depend on single-use items. The aim is to remove the material before investing in collection or treatment.
Food-waste prevention belongs at this stage. Treating unavoidable food scraps is important, but it does not replace better forecasting, purchasing, storage, preparation and portion design.
2. Redesign for reuse and refill
Reuse requires a service, not simply a reusable product.
Containers must be available in the right quantities, returned, inspected, cleaned, refilled and redistributed. Responsibilities for hygiene, loss, breakage, pricing and customer communication must be clear. Sufficient recurring demand is needed to make the service viable.
Refillables Đong Đầy, an independent enterprise co-led by Hanh Vu with other leaders, contributes this specialised function through community refill services and relevant hospitality applications.
Reuse and refill are also distinct from recycling. They keep products and packaging in use without first destroying their original form and value.
3. Separate remaining materials to a usable standard
Materials become difficult or impossible to recover when they are contaminated.
A working source-separation system therefore requires more than labelled bins. Businesses need clear material categories, practical placement, staff routines, contamination checks and feedback when standards are not met. Collection schedules and transport arrangements must preserve separation after materials leave the premises.
The required quality depends on the next user. A farmer, compost operator, recycler or reuse service may each need a different input standard.
4. Reconnect organics with biological systems
Suitable, source-separated organic materials can re-enter living food webs through carefully designed pathways.
Some materials can be processed through black soldier fly larvae systems that produce inputs for animal systems, or the multi-purpose liquid solution for home and garden care (such as eco-enzyme). Others can become compost and soil inputs that support microorganisms and plant growth. Landscape materials may require different preparation and processing from kitchen waste.
Each pathway depends on material quality, safety, labour, equipment, season, processing capacity and the intended end use. These operations connect Circular Tourism & Zero Waste with Closed-loop Farming & Agroecology.
5. Build a pathway for specific hospitality materials
Different materials require different operators and end uses.
Green Youth Collective’s established signature program currently include:
- Soap For Hope, developed with Diversey and partner hotels, collects used guest soap and reprocesses it for distribution through social and community partners. More than one tonne of used soap has been recovered since 2018.
- Linens For Life, also developed with Diversey and partner hotels, directs retired hotel textiles towards local sewing and upcycling. More than two tonnes of linens have been recovered since 2018.
- Kitchen soaps made from used cooking oil, developed with SAPO Hoi An and partner restaurants. Coffee Briques, also developed with Diversey, directs spent coffee grounds from hotels, restaurants, cafes towards alternative fuel sources for rural communities. Since 2020, approximately one tonne of both cooking oil and coffee grounds have been recovered under our operation.
The value of these examples lies in the complete pathway: separation at the hotel, collection, transport, processing, quality control, a responsible operator and a defined use for the output.
6. Record what remains
Residual waste is evidence.
It shows which products still have no viable alternative, which materials and services are poorly designed, where separation is failing and where no local processor or market exists. Recording these gaps helps businesses, suppliers and public actors decide what should be redesigned next.
A circular system improves by making leakage visible, not by claiming that every loop is already closed.
Different actors hold different responsibilities
“Community-led” does not mean leaving communities to solve institutional and market failures alone.
A functioning model distributes roles according to capability and authority.
- Tourism and hospitality businesses change procurement and service design, separate materials, train staff, provide operational data and contribute financially to the services they use.
- Suppliers and producers reduce unnecessary packaging and participate in take-back, reuse or refill arrangements where feasible.
- Community operators and waste workers collect, sort, process and record materials. These roles require appropriate pay, equipment, occupational protection and a voice in operational decisions.
- Farmers and other end users define the quality and quantity of biological or recovered inputs they can safely use.
- Public actors coordinate standards, public infrastructure, collection arrangements, incentives and accountability.
- REED develops technical pathways, advises businesses, supports operations and coordinates destination-level implementation where responsibilities have been established.
- Green Youth Collective connects the longer-term ecosystem of organisations, practitioners, places, solutions, learning and partnership.
- Refillables Đong Đầy operates relevant reuse and refill functions as an independent partner.
- Hội An Eco Hub provides a physical operating and learning anchor where material flows, services and responsibilities can be tested and made visible.
Finance is part of the design
A service cannot remain reliable if no one pays its real cost.
Circular pathways require labour, equipment, storage, transport, cleaning, processing, quality control, record keeping and coordination. Income from recovered materials may cover part of these costs, but low-value outputs rarely finance an entire service.
A workable financing arrangement may combine:
- business payments for audits, collection or material-management services;
- public investment in shared infrastructure and coordination;
- development funding for design, piloting, training and evidence;
- producer or supplier contributions;
- revenue from recovered products or materials;
- savings created through waste prevention and operational efficiency.
The appropriate mix depends on who creates the material, who benefits from the service and which parts deliver a wider public value.
Finance should therefore be agreed at the beginning of a pathway and be the informed decision across multiple stakeholders.
Where the model operates
Hội An Eco Hub is the main operating and learning anchor.
Located in Cẩm Kim, Hội An Eco Hub brings together source separation, material recovery, organics processing, reuse and refill connections, business engagement, community and visitors learning.
The Eco Hub is one physical place within a wider model. The Working Model informs services and partnerships beyond the facility, while the Place page explains how local infrastructure, public arrangements, workers, community relationships, floods and operating conditions shape what can function at the site.
The wider model also extends through partner hotels, food and beverage businesses, suppliers, processors, farmers and community operators across different material pathways.
Status
The model contains components at different stages.
Operating
- Organics and material-recovery activities at Hội An Eco Hub under defined staffing, quality and site conditions. Already connected to the long-term process of agro-ecosystem restoration in gardens and farms across Hội An and Gò Nổi.
- Soap For Hope, Linens For Life, used cooking oil, spent coffee grounds partner pathways.
- Community reuse and refill services operated by Refillables Đong Đầy.
- Business training, technical advice and site-based learning linked to tourism operations.
During documented 2024–2025 operations, the organics system recorded a reference capacity of approximately 200 kg per day per operating worker, with supervisory support. This figure describes those operating conditions rather than permanent site-wide or annual throughput.
Piloting
- New processing methods and material-specific pathways whose technical performance, demand or financial viability remains under assessment. Especially for improving the organic waste loop with black solider flies and animal system, dry waste and different plastic types.
- Improved collection, contamination-control and data systems involving businesses and local operators.
- Deeper integration between business separation, community collection, public infrastructure and municipal planning. Especially with deeper engagement of women and families, youth and schools, hospitality SMEs.
- More dependable financing arrangements for local circular services.
- Shared performance standards and traceable destination-level data.
- Wider reuse systems requiring return logistics, cleaning capacity and sufficient recurring demand.
These labels should be updated as operators, infrastructure, finance and evidence change.
What we track
Kilograms recovered matter, but they do not explain whether the model is becoming dependable.
We therefore look at several connected levels:
- Upstream change: products avoided, procurement changed, food waste prevented and reuse adopted.
- Operational performance: separation quality, contamination, collection reliability, processing capacity and rejected materials.
- Material outcomes: quantities entering and leaving each pathway, verified end use and remaining leakage.
- Local roles: who works, who is paid, what equipment and protection are provided, and who participates in decisions.
- Institutional capacity: agreements, finance, standards, public coordination and the ability to respond when conditions change.
Evidence from these levels should connect to the relevant Impact and Place pages.
How this model connects
Circular Tourism & Zero Waste is one of three models acting directly on material and ecological foundations.
Suitable biological materials connect with Closed-loop Farming & Agroecology. Soil inputs, nurseries and farm practices can then support longer-term Floodplain Agro-ecosystem Restoration.
Community Schools for Regeneration turn operating sites and material pathways into practical learning. Regenerative Tourism allows visitors, schools and travel partners to engage with the work through programmes operated by REwild Vietnam.
For the wider argument about why individual business improvements do not automatically create a healthier destination, read Beyond Green Tourism.
Discuss a Circular Tourism or Zero Waste partnership
We work with:
- Hotels, resorts and food businesses seeking to redesign procurement, services, separation and material pathways.
- Local governments and destination organisations developing community or destination operating systems.
- Development and funding partners supporting infrastructure, enterprise capacity, evidence or system pilots.
- Technical and producer partners building reuse, processing and responsible recovery services.
Discuss a business service, destination pilot or development partnership