Hong Kong needs deposit scheme for plastic bottles says green group as city’s recycling rates drop below 10 per cent
Green Earth proposes scheme to charge HK$1 per bottle which customers would get back when they returned it
Hongkongers are recycling less than 10 per cent of the plastic bottles they buy, leading one environmental group to call for the implementation of a HK$1 deposit scheme.
Green Earth believes that potentially hitting the city’s residents in their pockets could raise the recycling rate to 70 per cent, and stop people merely throwing the bottles away.
The local group studied 25 countries where consumers pay a refundable deposit on every plastic bottle they buy, and found the average recycling rate was 73 per cent. The average refundable charge per bottle was HK$0.93.
“The disposal rate of plastic bottles [in Hong Kong] keeps rising, but the recycle rate has dropped from around 10 per cent to 8.5 per cent in 2016, the latest figure the government released,” said Edwin Lau Che-feng, the group’s executive director.
The group’s scheme would operate in a similar fashion to the one used for glass bottles in the city.