With benefits to the human health, environment, economy, and energy, anaerobic digestion (AD) systems have attracted remarkable attention within the scientific community. Anaerobic digestion system is created from (bio)reactors to perform a series of bi-metabolism steps including hydrolysis/acidogenesis, acetogenesis, and methanogenesis. By considering the physical separation of the digestion steps above, AD systems can be classified into single-stage (all digestion steps in one reactor) and multi-stage (digestion steps in various reactors). Operation of the AD systems does not only depend on the type of digestion system but also relies on the interaction among growth factors (temperature, pH, and nutrients), the type of reactor, and operating parameters (retention time, organic loading rate). However, these interactions were often reviewed inadequately for the single-stage digestion systems. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of both single-stage and multi-stage systems as well as the influence of the growth factors, operating conditions, and the type of reactor on them. From those points, the advantages, disadvantages, and application range of each system are well understood.

This study aims to present waste characterisation, solid waste management practice and analyse the challenges in the solid waste management system in the tourism destination of Hoi An City, Vietnam. The sampling and questionnaire surveys were conducted for measuring characterisation and management practice of solid waste. A material flow analysis method was used for analysing the waste flow. The results show that the tourism destination generated daily around 15080 kg t of waste, in which the significant proportions come from restaurants (46%), hotels (22%) and households (13%). The feature of the waste composition is high rates of kitchen waste (46.8%), tissue (11.54%) and recyclable materials (12.58%), which result in high moisture (46.79%) and a low heating value (16,866 kJ kg^-1) of waste. Also, solid waste management practices were evasively implemented by stakeholders with low rates and efficiency. Furthermore, a substantial gap of the solid waste management system is the confusion in waste collection activities, which is shown by the overload of waste in street bins and the financial loss for the solid waste management system owing to the non-compliance with collection regulation of stakeholders. Also, the mixing of waste by collection crews after separation at sources, the in-appropriation of collection time and manner are the dark points of the solid waste management system that may be causes of the non-cooperation of stakeholders. These gaps and confusion in the solid waste management system are the significant challenges in the improvement of the solid waste management system in the tourism destination toward sustainability.

A study to characterize municipal solid waste was carried out at various sources in Hoi An, a famous World Heritage City of Vietnam. The purpose of the research was to identify the generation rate and compositions of household waste from different types of areas of the city (rural, urban, and tourist quarters) as well as waste from tourism sources. The result will contribute to harmonized solid waste management for the city. Wastes from household, hotels, restaurants, and streets were collected daily in two weeks for generation and composition sampling. A stratified random sampling method was applied, and several statistical tools were carried out to analyze obtained data. As a result, the mean of household waste generation was 0.223 kg capita-1 day-1. The average waste generation per capita in the urban region, which included the city center-ST1 (0.203 kg capita-1 day-1) and the urban areas-ST2 (0.264 kg capita-1 day-1), was almost double that of the countryside-ST3 (0.12 kg capita-1 day-1). The difference was statistically significant. Waste from tourism sources may have a great contribution in the total amount of waste generation since tourist services are important and active activities in the city. The results of the study showed that hotels generated about 0.6 kg room-1 day-1 , one restaurant produced an average of 26.18 kg day-1 , and the mean of daily waste generation from tourist streets was 6.99 kg per 100 m per day. Degradable waste counted for more than half of municipal waste, and combustible waste (textile, leather, wood, diapers, etc.) had higher portions, which meant that biological and thermal treatment technologies could be potential options for the purpose of decreasing the amount of waste to landfill for the city.