It is amazing what 50 Hong Kong cents and some resolve can do. A year after the introduction of the plastic bag levy, most of us have been indoctrinated: we dutifully take our own bags with us when shopping. And so after all the debate and hand-wringing, we have a nicely successful environmental achievement. We should build on this success: there is no reason why the scheme should not now be widened and promptly turned into a full-blown recycling programme.
Authorities do not seem so sure. Environment secretary Edward Yau Tang-wah has spoken of the need to move to the next stage, but has not given a timetable. Instead, the talk is of reviewing, studying systems elsewhere, more consultations and discussion and exemptions. This is not what we need; we would have thought that the experience of the plastic bag levy is that we should just get on with it.
Worse, ideas are even being floated that would erode the success of what has been achieved. Yau said at the weekend that the bureaucratic requirements of the levy may be too much for small retailers like newspaper vendors to handle, so perhaps they could collect the levy and keep it rather than forwarding it to the government. That opens the door to abuse: if retailers do not want to deal with unhappy customers, they simply would not charge the levy, since they do not have to pass it on.
It is true there were some minor hiccups with the first stage of the levy. Among some of the 3,000 shops involved have been accounts of checkout staff selling rolls of bags as an alternative to paying the levy, or customers being allowed to take free ones provided for fruit and vegetables for their grocery items. There are times when exemptions should be allowed, but retailers should generally be holding as closely as possible to the spirit of the law.
We have quickly become used to the idea of using fewer plastic bags. There is no reason why the scheme should not be extended to more retailers. The next stage after that is the recycling of household garbage, as happens in environmentally responsible communities elsewhere. Ridding our city of unnecessary plastic bags is a baby step; we now have to quickly move to matters that are more meaningful.