Analysis of production, consumption and environmental burden of plastic industry in Vietnam by input-Output table

EnvironmEntal SciEncES | EnvironmEntal SciEncE
Vietnam Journal of Science,
Technology and Engineering 89June 2021 • Volume 63 number 2
Introduction
The plastic industry is an important sector to the 
Vietnamese economy. Over the period of 2010-2015, the 
industry reached an annual growth rate of 16-18% in which 
there were items with growth rates of nearly 100% [1]. The 
plastic industry is one of ten industries that the Vietnamese 
government prioritizes for development planning due to 
its stable growth rate and reasonable export efficiency. 
Vietnam’s consumption demand for plastic products has 
also increased significantly from 35 kg/person/year in 2007 
to 108 kg/person/year in 2018 [2].
The plastic industry is divided into four main segments, 
which include packaging plastic (41%), construction plastic 
(24%), civil plastic (20%), and engineering plastics (15%) [1]. 
Plastic materials are categorized by two main types: 
- (i) Thermoplastics (PE, HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE, PP, PS, 
PVC): these plastics can be recycled many times and the 
main outputs are plastic packaging, construction materials, 
consumer products, electrical/electronic equipment, and 
furniture/appliances, etc. Consumer demand for PE and PP 
are the most common, which accounts for about 48.5% of 
these plastics. 
- (ii) Thermosetting plastic (epoxy, melamine, phenolic, 
polyurethane, and urea): these plastic materials are not 
recyclable. The plastics are mainly used in construction, 
furniture, transportation, adhesives, electronics, printing 
inks, and coatings [1]. 
The increase in plastic consumption leads to higher 
volumes of plastic waste and the accumulation of plastic 
across all economic sectors. Internationally, many studies 
Analysis of production, consumption 
and environmental burden of plastic industry 
in Vietnam by input-output table
Thi Yen Ta1, 2*, Thi Anh Tuyet Nguyen1, Hoang Thi Hong Van3
1School of Environmental Science and Technology, Hanoi University of Science and Technology
2Faculty of Environmental, Hanoi University of Natural Resources and Environment
3College of Urban Works Construction
Received 12 December 2020; accepted 5 April 2021
*Corresponding author: Email: ttyen@hunre.edu.vn.
Abstract:
The plastic industry is an economic sector that plays an important role in promoting a circular economy in Vietnam. 
This study used the updated 2018 input-output (IO) table to identify and analyse the production and consumption 
of seven different plastics including: HDPE, PS, PE, PET, PVC, PP, and others. The study also integrated the IO 
model to unveil the environmental burden of these plastics through the plastic demand of 40 economic sectors and 
households. As a result, in 2018, the amount of direct solid waste from the plastic industry was 58,147 tons and 
the amount of indirect solid waste from the plastic industry to other economic sectors and the household sector 
were 214,258 tons and 6,262 tons, respectively. Agriculture and its services, food processing, fashion manufacturing, 
basic chemical production, electrical and electronic equipment production, and transport production embodied the 
highest indirect burdens due to their use of plastic products. This study contributes to MFA research and developing 
strategies for sustainable production and consumption of plastics and the management of plastic waste in Vietnam. 
Keywords: consumption, economic, IO table, plastic, production.
Classification number: 5.3
DOI: 10.31276/VJSTE.63(2).89-96
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Vietnam Journal of Science,
Technology and Engineering90 June 2021 • Volume 63 number 2
have been conducted such as a material flow analysis 
of plastic waste to promote a circular economy [3], the 
role of stakeholders in the plastic industry value chain in 
implementing solutions to achieve a transition to a circular 
economy in the European plastic packaging industry [4], the 
analysis of plastic tax benefits and disadvantages within a 
circular economy [5], proposing plastic waste management 
scenarios [6], assessment and circularity potential of 
recovery systems for household plastic waste [7], and the 
characterization and evaluation of plastic recyclability [8]. 
In Vietnam, there have been several studies on the effects 
of plastic production and consumption on the environment, 
the impact of plastic recycling in craft villages, green-house 
gas emissions from plastic production, the environmental 
burden of PET plastic, effects of plastic waste on the sea 
environment, and the reality of plastic waste in Vietnam 
[2, 9-13]. These studies mainly focus on analysis of the 
green-house gas (GHG) emissions of plastic recycling on 
the household scale of craft villages or the analysis of the 
GHG burden on economic sectors by the plastic industry. 
To the best of our knowledge, there have been no studies 
on analysing the burdens of plastic waste from economic 
sectors and households. Therefore, it is essential to unveil 
these environmental burdens through plastic demand 
and consumption. This study is expected to be a valuable 
reference for policymakers in proposing a resource-
efficient plastic waste management solution and specifically 
targets the management of plastic materials and waste by 
consumers. 
There are different approaches to the investigation 
of material flow. One approach is material flow analysis 
(MFA) [3, 14] and another is using an IO table [15, 16]. An 
IO table is a mathematical economic model simulating the 
relationship between the manufacturing industries and the 
products of the economy. A number of studies have used 
the IO model to analyse the relationship of emissions and/or 
waste between economic sectors [17, 18].
This study used the IO model to determine the current 
state of production and consumption of plastics in 
Vietnam’s economic sectors and households combined with  ... production (S20), and Transport production (S21). 
The consumption demand for plastic in the trade and service 
industries sectors (S30-S40) are mainly plastic packaging 
products and household plastics produced from PE and PP plastic.
(A) 
7 
The plastic industry has four main segments: packaging plastic, household 
plastic, construction plastic, and engineering plastic. Figure 2 shows that there 
have been structural changes to these segments over different periods. In the first 
stage, household plastic accounted for nearly 60% of the production value, then 
gradually decreased over time because household plastic was imported more to 
Vietnam. Since 2008, the plastic packaging industry increased to nearly 40% and 
remained stable until 2018. This could be a potential plastic segment because the 
consumer demand in households and industries for this plastic is very large. In 
addition, this segment had one of the largest export volumes of plastic over all 
segments of the plastic industry. 
A) Structure of plastic industry by 
year 
B) Structure of plastics consumption 
in 2018 
Fig. 2. Structure of plastic industry in Vietnam. 
This study uses an updated 2018 IO tabl to identify the curre t state f 
production and consumption in the plastics industry and estimated that the output 
of plastic in 2018 was 10.2 million tons, of which the a ount of plastic for 
intermediate consumption for other economic sectors was 7.7 million tons, while 
that for household consumption was 178.9 thousand tons, for exports was 3.8 
0.478
021
010
036
001
029
002
HDPE PE PET PP PS PVC Other
 (B) 
Fig. 2. Structure of plastic industry in Vietnam. (A) Structure of plastic industry by year, (B) Structure of plastics consumption in 2018.
Fig. 3. Plastic quantity and consumption in Vietnam in 2018.
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Vietnam Journal of Science,
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Fig. 4. Plastics demand of 40 sectors in 2018 (tons).
Note: S1: agriculture and its services; S2: forestry and its services; S3: fishery and aquaculture; S4: hard coal and lignite; S5: crude 
oil; S6: natural gas or lPG; S7: extractive; S8: food processing; S9: fashion manufacturing; S10: wood products; S11: paper and its 
service; S12: coke; S13: gasoline and lubricants; S14: other oil mining; S15: basic chemicals; S16: plastics; S17: building materials; 
S18: metal production; S19: electronic, electronic equipment; S20: equipment and tool production; S21: transport production; S22: 
medical equipment; S23: electricity and production and delivery; S24: gas and services; S25: water; S26: sewerage and wastewater 
treatment services; S27: solid waste collection, treatment and disposal services; S28: other waste treatment; S29: civil construction; 
S30: repairing services; S31: trading; S32: transport; S33: post services; S34: hotels and catering; S35: editing and communication 
services; S36: financial intermediation and insurance services; S37: real estate activities; S38: other business activities; S39: 
administrative and education; S40: other community, social, and personal services.
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Environmental burdens from plastic production and 
uses
Based on the coefficient of solid waste generated from 
the production of plastic products, this study integrated the 
2018 IO table to determine the amount of solid waste in 
the plastic industry contributing to other economic sectors. 
It was estimated that the total solid waste emissions of the 
plastic industry were 278,667 tons of which the amount of 
direct solid waste from the plastic industry was 58,147 tons 
(Fig. 5), the indirect emissions of the plastic industry from 
other economic sectors were 214,258 tons (Fig. 6), and from 
household consumption was 6,262 tons (Fig. 7).
Fig. 5. Waste from plastic sector in 2018.
PP, PE, and PVC plastics were three types of plastics 
with a higher emission contribution to the plastics industry 
than the rest of the plastics.
Fig. 6. Indirect plastic waste from sectors in 2018.
The emission contribution of PP was the highest among 
the plastics (98,786 tons). PP is a group of plastics with high 
consumption demand. The production of this type of plastic 
can be easily burned, so the wastage rate of this plastic is 
higher than that of other types. However, this type of plastic 
is easy to recover, reuse, and recycle and the recycling 
process does not require high quality plastic input waste. 
Thus, the environmental burden of this plastic is negligible.
PVC and PE are two types of plastic with large emissions 
at 50,268 tons and PE 38,862 tons, respectively. However, 
PVC plastic is mostly supplied to industries for direct 
use such as construction while PE plastic often produces 
packaging products such as plastic bags, bottles, jars, and 
disposable cups. These types of plastic products are difficult 
to be collected for recycling, so the impacts of PE plastics 
are of great concern.
In general, the contribution of emissions from the plastic 
industry mainly comes from economic groups with high 
demand for plastic products such as basic chemical industry 
(S15), food processing (S8), Fashion manufacturing (S9), 
Electronic, electronic equipment (S19), and Transport 
production (S21).
This study also estimated indirect emissions due to 
plastic use from households (Fig. 7). Plastic products 
directly consumed by households are packaging (plastic 
bags, bottles, jars, box trays, etc.) and household plastic 
(buckets, dishes, cups, water pipes, etc.). Therefore, PE, 
PP, PET, and PVC resins are the groups of plastics that 
contribute more indirectly than other plastics in household 
consumption. Moreover, the statistics of plastic products 
consumed by household groups are often more difficult 
to collect because most of them are disposable plastic 
packaging and the collection efficiency depends greatly 
on the environmental consciousness of the user. Therefore, 
to improve the efficiency of collection and recycling, it is 
necessary to pay attention to this consumer group.
Fig. 7. Waste plastic of household consumption in 2018.
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Vietnam Journal of Science,
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The results of this study are the basis for the development 
of the plastic industry and the basis for developing a strategy 
of collection, reuse, and recycling of various plastic products 
to improve plastic waste management and treatment 
efficiency. Indeed, while the plastic industry contributes to 
most economic sectors, the use of plastic products is creating 
great pressure on the environment and the government is 
in a place to encourage the reduction of plastic generation. 
Therefore, to ensure the stable development of the plastic 
industry in the coming time, plastic manufacturers need to 
gradually change production materials to increase product 
life cycle (for example, converting products plastic bags to 
non-woven PET bags) or the manufacture of biodegradable 
plastic products. The government is expected to support 
enterprises in converting production technology from 
conventional plastic to biodegradable plastic materials.
Different plastic types have different contributions to 
economic industries and each plastic has different functions 
and consumption characteristics. Therefore, it is necessary 
to have policies for the collection and management of plastic 
waste for each plastic type to ensure that it does not affect 
the development of the plastic industry. For single-use 
plastic groups that are often difficult to collect for recycling, 
it is necessary to have policies that encourage consumers 
to change their usage habits. On the side of the economic 
sectors that use this packaging group, it is necessary to have 
changes in product design to limit the use of single-use 
plastic packaging or to improve or develop longer lifecycle 
packaging.
Plastic supply to economic industries accounts for 
a larger proportion than its supply to households, but the 
collection of plastic products from economic sectors is easier 
because it is tied to inter-legal regulations related to waste 
management of businesses. Meanwhile, plastic generated 
from households is more difficult to manage because it 
depends much on the habits and awareness of consumers. 
Therefore, policies on plastic waste management need to 
focus their impact on consumers (households) instead of 
economic sectors as well as offer better collection measures 
for the household consumption of plastic.
Conclusions
Using the IO method, the flows of different types of 
plastics between production and consumption sectors in 
2018 and their environmental burdens were identified in 
this study. PP, PVC, and PE were the three types of plastic 
with the largest plastic waste. PP and PE plastics contributed 
mainly to agriculture services, fashion manufacturing, 
paper production, basic chemical, and trading sectors. 
PET is the major contributor to solid waste generation in 
food processing, fashion manufacturing, and electronic 
equipment sectors. PVC contributes to building materials, 
electronic equipment, and civil construction sectors. The 
burdens of production to the environment from household 
consumption mainly came from four plastic types including 
PE (2,943 tons), PP (1,566 tons), PVC (689 tons), and PET 
(751 tons). It is necessary to develop policies to manage 
plastic waste for each plastic type to ensure that it does not 
affect the development of the plastic industry and promote 
sustainable consumption towards a circular economy.
COMPETING INTERESTS 
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest 
regarding the publication of this paper.
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