Mandatory recycling laws urgently needed
Recycling should be driving the government's policy on waste disposal, but the matter seems to have taken a back seat. Nowhere is this more obvious than with hazardous electronic items such as televisions and computers, which can cause severe environmental damage, yet remain ungoverned by legislation.
Our landfills will be full in a matter of years. A decade could pass before plans for an incinerator reach fruition. But incineration alone will not resolve our waste management problems. Measures must include a robust mandatory recycling programme that ensures minimal damage to our fragile environment. Electrical products are central to such an approach given that they cannot be incinerated and if thrown into landfills, could seep hazardous materials into the soil and water table.
This is not to say that authorities do not recognise the dangers. The waste reduction framework announced in 2005 outlined a scheme under which the producers of such products would be responsible for their safe disposal. But the projected introduction of the plan last year has passed without action and the Environmental Protection Department says that discussions are continuing with suppliers and retailers on a voluntary system.
Official figures would appear to back a non-urgent approach. They show about 80 per cent of the estimated 1.5 million electronic appliances thrown away each year are recycled. The term is used loosely though. Hundreds of appliances are given to the needy under a trial scheme run jointly by the EPD and St James' Settlement charity, but the rest, recovered from rubbish, are shipped elsewhere in the region. This is not recycling - breaking circuit boards apart to recover precious metals, melting lead-filled TV tubes to make glass and shredding plastic housing for use in concrete, as happens in countries with strict laws; rather, it is passing a problem on to someone else to resolve.
Without firm policies, the 20 per cent of appliances that go into landfills will remain an environmental hazard. The introduction of digital TV services poses a burgeoning threat. As we report today, the environmental group Friends of the Earth projects that half a million TV sets could be replaced in Hong Kong during the first year of full service by ones better able to display the higher quality images.
This is not a matter to take lightly. TV tubes are highly dangerous; each contains several kilograms of lead, a poison that can cause nervous-system damage. Lead protects against radiation, but after a TV or computer monitor is crushed in a rubbish truck or landfill, it leaches out and becomes a health risk.
Making the producers of such products responsible for their safe recycling is one way to tackle the problem. But a voluntary system in which old products are sent back via suppliers and retailers, as the EPD is pushing for, is not the solution. Only through a mandatory scheme backed by law can this be effectively done.
The approach as envisaged in 2005 should be taken up by authorities as a matter of urgency. If lawmakers give the issue prompt consideration, the digital age can be greeted in a responsible manner. Taking on the disposal of TVs, computers and the like in such a way could set a solid basis for the eventual implementation of a wider policy of mandatory recycling.
