Don't let recycling experiment go to waste
Packaging, construction waste, computer parts and electronics. These make up some of the many tonnes of rubbish that Hong Kong consumers and businesses send to landfills each day. Plastics alone account for 520,000 tonnes per year, according to one estimate. Recycling programmes have been underused and enjoy mixed success, while our dumps are filling up ahead of schedule.
We have a system that charges minimal fees to those who generate and dispose of waste, where the government provides heavy subsidies to run landfills and where there are not enough incentives to recycle. It is reasonable to say that something needs to be changed.
Car and truck tyres, as we report today, accounted for perhaps 12,000 tonnes of waste that went to landfills last year. The plan to levy tyre-recycling fees on vehicle owners at the time of licence renewal is a small, experimental step; yet the pilot programme is an encouraging sign that the government is looking for creative ways of addressing the waste problem. The fees, which will be used to encourage recycling, are entirely consistent with the user-pays principle, and it will be interesting to see what the government will propose for other sectors.
Computer and mobile phone batteries, construction and demolition waste, and packaging for consumer goods from cosmetics to mooncakes are among the examples of other landfill material that could be reduced through innovative programmes. Incentives and disincentives will need to be created; in many cases neither exist now and the easiest option is simply to toss things into the garbage.
Where once harbour reclamation projects doubled as a means of disposing of rubbish, recent court challenges on reclamation work means that this option is less viable in the future. The heavy financial burden of our landfills and the cost to the environment are two other reasons to focus on recycling and reduction of waste.
Granted, such goals could be difficult to achieve given Hong Kong's relentless consumer culture. The shift away from a use-and-throw-away mentality will need to be supported by education campaigns, convenient recycling programmes and, if need be, targeted fees levied on consumers and businesses.
Such programmes will not be successful without community and business support, but if the government can consult widely and convey the important reasons for change, there should be less resistance.
It may take some political will, ingenuity and standing up to vested interests in large industries, but the alternative - to keep digging costly new landfills that mar our pristine countryside and leave possibly toxic residues for future generations to deal with - is not in the city's long-term interest.
