Plastic bag levy in stores is only the first step
The government's plastic bag levy took effect yesterday. It came into force after more than a decade of public education by green groups including Friends of the Earth (HK) and numerous high-profile government promotions on the problem of overuse of plastic bags in our daily lives.
This was the first piece of legislation under the Product Eco-responsibility Ordinance, an umbrella bill that aims to set out a legislative framework for the administration to keep control over many other products such as electronic equipment, drink containers and packaging waste.
We were disappointed to find that chain stores adopted different methods to get round the bag levy, such as prepacking products using plastic carrier bags.
There continues to be opposition to the levy. Some people claim these plastic bags can be reused as bin liners at home.
However, if we continued taking free bags from supermarkets, we would end up with more bags than we needed. A normal household would only use one bin liner a day. In most residential estates, including the public housing estates, tenants are provided with enough rubbish bags from the property management companies. Under the user-pays principle, we have a responsibility to pay for the bags we use to dispose of our refuse. The so-called free bags in stores were not free. Their cost was already factored into the prices of goods on the shelves.
Under the new law, stores will not be required to pay the levy to the government. They only have to set up a system to collect the levy on behalf of the government.