Trial domestic waste scheme cuts recharging
Residents have recycled more and dumped less rubbish in a green group's trial domestic waste scheme. The trial also highlighted practical problems ahead of the government's plan to introduce a waste levy in 2016.
Residents have recycled more and dumped less rubbish in a green group's trial domestic waste scheme.
Greeners Action launched the one-month scheme in a residential building in Prince Edward on November 21. Seventy-three of the 87 households took part from the beginning and six more joined in the second week. In the first week of the exercise, residents dumped 141kg less non-recyclable rubbish.
The scheme resembles an idea put forward in the Council for Sustainable Development's public consultation paper, which is to make people buy garbage bags and dispose of them at a designated time and place.
Since the group cannot charge residents, it provided the bags free for residents to dispose of non-recyclable waste. At the end of the trial they can return any unused bags and claim cash so that the less they dump, the more money they get. The bags come in two sizes, five and 15 litres, and a cash value of HK$1 and HK$3 each.
Residents have to classify nine types of recyclable waste and put it into corresponding collection bins in the building. Residents must put the bags outside their flats between 7pm and 9pm daily for workers to collect.