No time to waste to save Hong Kong from drowning in its own rubbish

One of the most shocking statistics I know is the amount of waste Hong Kong dumps into its landfills every day: 13,400 tonnes. That's enough to fill four Olympic-size swimming pools - every day. Talk about unsustainable. At this rate, our landfills will be full within eight years or so. What will we do with four swimming pools full of rubbish every day?

What do our neighbours do? We put 52 per cent of our waste into landfills (and recycle the rest). Singapore, Taiwan and Japan all put in less than 3 per cent. They recycle about as much as we do (less in Japan's case); the difference is that they incinerate most of the rest. However, if we have a motto, it is "Not in my backyard". Even plans for an incinerator on an artificial island face stiff opposition.

Logically, some incineration will be unavoidable. But if we take another look at our neighbours, we see that they also tackle the problem in an obvious and basic way: produce less waste in the first place.

The government has asked the Council for Sustainable Development, which I chair, to lead a public engagement exercise on how Hong Kong can use waste charging to reduce the thousands of tonnes of stuff we throw out every day.

This means making households pay in line with the volume of waste they throw out. We have looked at regional and other cities to see how they make it work. There are various mechanisms; typically they involve the compulsory use of specially purchased plastic bags, or some other way of disposal. In Hong Kong, we need to consider whether different built environments - single blocks, villages and big estates - will need different systems.

I will not go through the technical details here. I would like to outline some principles.