It’s time to get serious about shrinking Hong Kong’s growing garbage mountain

Once again our government appears lost as it contemplates how to manage Hong Kong’s growing mountain of garbage. The logic of the endlessly postponed solid waste charging scheme is clear: if you charge residents to throw rubbish away, they will seek to minimise the charge by sorting it for recycling. Behaviour change.

However, critical infrastructure and incentives are missing from the solid waste management scheme. Political leadership that prioritises the issue is also apparently absent. Rather, the government has embarked on yet another trial to better understand the problems. 

In Hong Kong such trials abound: in 2006-07, a three-month trial;  in 2016-2017, 33 different community involvement projects; in November 2018, a 10-12 month trial. The Waste Blueprint for Hong Kong 2035 is replete with trials. Waste management, including charging, has been well studied and tested. Officials should already understand the problems. The blueprint, published in 2021, reveals that experts do. 

If government leaders do not understand, perhaps they could lead by example and trial the scheme themselves. The chief executive could require Tamar and all government buildings to use the bags, as well as all political appointees, heads of department, district officers, and district council members, rather than limiting the pilot scheme to one government complex.

The public would benefit from seeing officials at the top using the bags and reducing waste. What are their reported problems and their attempts to fix them? The government must make waste management a high priority, which apparently it is not now. This is a political decision and must come from the top. 

Beyond government, society is awash with solutions to our solid waste problems. Non-government organisations, especially green groups, businesses, and policy entrepreneurs, have all suggested solutions. Models outside Hong Kong are readily available. Generally, these focus on pay to throw, recycling, and waste-to-energy incineration. Our policy also includes these elements.  

Existing or planned infrastructure in Hong Kong includes up to 1,000 mostly small and medium-sized businesses and organisations that recycle. Authorities set up the EcoPark in Tuen Mun, the first recycling business park. Officially established facilities now recycle food, electronic, and yard waste, and sewage sludge.

In 2015 officials set up a HK$1 billion Recycling Fund to support the trade. Through recycling, Hong Kong in 2022 reportedly recovered 32 per cent of municipal solid waste. The Blueprint 2035, however, calls for 55 per cent recovery to achieve a goal of “zero-landfill.”  

Officials envisage that the waste-to-energy I Park1 incinerator on South Lantau, opening in 2025, will handle 3,000 tons of waste per day. This compares to the 11,000-plus tons we send to landfills daily.  Hong Kong will need more incinerators. Shenzhen now has five. 

To get a sense of the missing infrastructure in Hong Kong, we can look at our neighbours. In Taiwan, for example, authorities in 1998 introduced an extended producer responsibility system (EPR) to accompany their “pay to throw” policy rolled out in 2000. The EPR charges manufacturers and importers a small fee for creating or importing products. This goes into a fund to develop waste management infrastructure and recycling technologies.

In Hong Kong officials have introduced EPR-type schemes for plastic bags, and some electronic equipment and glass bottles. Legislation for drinks cartons has yet to appear. Expanding the coverage of such schemes is an urgent priority.

Across the border in mainland China, Shenzhen also has practices worth noting. To ensure that household waste is sorted appropriately, authorities there have appointed paid garbage sorting supervisors to guide citizens at waste sorting stations in housing estates. Officials hired sanitation workers, whose day job is to collect the garbage, for the task. Shenzhen also rewards residential communities with the highest waste reduction rates. By 2022 authorities had handed out awards totalling over RMB80 million in such schemes. Carrot and stick, focusing on behavioural change.  

What to learn from these examples? First, Taipei’s experience clearly shows that implementing pay to throw and EPR-type policies drove a rapid expansion of recycling. “The financial penalty drove recycling, increasing recycling rates from 2 percent to 57 percent,” one review of the policies concludes. “The lesson remains clear, charging for waste disposal and developing an EPR scheme drives down waste production, builds infrastructure and increases recycling.”

The blueprint points out that pay to throw is “the cornerstone for promoting waste reduction and recycling.”  That is, we do not need to wait until a perfect recycling regime exists in Hong Kong, we should implement waste charging now, without delay, to drive behavioural change. 

Second, these examples show that governments need a mix of incentives to nudge residents to reduce waste, not just penalties. 

Third, the government must play a more active role in leading waste reduction efforts than is currently the case. Its policy relies heavily on the market for recycling and to operate recycling facilities. The businesses involved are sensitive to the supply and demand of recycled products. In recession, they may go bankrupt. Yet our need to recycle continues. The government should expand its counter-cyclical economic support policies for these businesses. 

Moreover, the government needs to scale up our recycling infrastructure, expanding both the collection and recovery of recyclables and the scope of EPR-type coverage. Authorities should better coordinate recycling policy to support scaled-up recycling in the region. Officials talk about integration with the Greater Bay Area. Hong Kong and Shenzhen, for example, may consider establishing joint larger-scale recycling operations to serve both communities. 

These practices highlight the fundamental reality that there is no free lunch for managing waste. Consumers should carefully consider how they will dispose of waste when they make purchases. Whether residents sort waste themselves or pay management companies to do it, or whether the government taxes and pays for garbage sorting supervisors, in the end the community must pay – preferably based on ability to do so. 

Authorities should introduce pay to throw without delay. This will drive behavioural change and recycling, reducing waste. Officials should also invest in more recycling facilities and waste-to-energy incinerators. These solutions would benefit from collaboration with our neighbour, Shenzhen. 

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