Plastic bag levy consistent with sensible user-pays principle
Alex Chu in his letter ('Plastic bag tax will not help environment', June 3) continues to question the veracity of the number of plastic bags disposed of every day in Hong Kong.
However, your editorial ('Plastic bag levy can help get us thinking green', June 3) appears to accept, as do the majority of your readers, the Environmental Protection Department's (EPD) figure of three per person per day and hence the methodology used to arrive at this figure.
As this number far exceeds the quantity necessary for reuse as refuse bags, then the term 'indiscriminate' can certainly be applied to a significant proportion of the bags discarded.
Once again Mr Chu is trying to mislead by referring to supermarket bags when the EPD's figures refer to plastic bags in general.
The intention is to eventually achieve reductions in the excessive usage of all plastic bags.
Now that the mainland has introduced a charge for plastic bags, Hong Kong must swiftly follow suit or otherwise we risk a run here on free-of-charge bags as shoppers will collect them to take back across the border. Correspondents such as J. Neil Young of Glasgow ('Plastic bag tax is just pointless', May 17), who neglected to advise your readers that he is the managing director of Simpac, one of the leading packaging suppliers in Britain, and supporters such as Mr Chu and Charles Chow Chi-man must now accept the inevitable.
Rather than wasting their time and energy on trying to block the inevitable, their focus should now be on the production of bin-liners of the same sterling qualities that they are attributing to the supermarket bags.
Environmental degradation and pollution have exacerabated the impact of the Sichuan earthquake. Hong Kong must now wake up and face reality: our throwaway, wasteful lifestyle is no longer sustainable.
The implementation of the charge on plastic bags will be our first timid step towards the user-pays principle and a reduction in superfluous consumption.
Why are we waiting?
Martin Brinkley, Ma Wan
