Avoiding waste and recycling are the best way to solve Hong Kong's environmental challenges

Friends of the Earth (HK) has been lobbying the government to focus on reducing the generation of waste through appropriate policies, namely, waste charging, producer responsibility and landfill bans.

The crux of our waste problem is our disposal mentality, where we tend to dispose and buy again, rather than save things for reuse.

As a result, Hong Kong generates more waste per capita than other comparable jurisdictions such as Tokyo and Seoul.

In the full spectrum of waste management, we need to reduce, reuse and recycle our waste (which rank higher in the waste management hierarchy), so as to reduce its volume before any thermal treatment or disposal of it at landfills (which rank lower). Our government's past documents state the benefits of focusing on upper-level methods of the waste management hierarchy, though it seems it is still concentrating on lower-level strategies.

Incineration is one method of reducing the volume of waste, but if we do not implement meaningful waste avoidance policies, the city will rely heavily on thermal treatment methods that destroy many useful recyclable materials by turning them into ash (which requires landfill disposal).