Tear off the glossy covers or your magazines won’t get recycled, Hongkongers told
New rules on waste paper sent to mainland China mean contaminants found in glossy covers won’t pass the tests for recycling
Hongkongers must be encouraged to remove the glossy cover pages before dropping a magazine in a recycling bin, otherwise the entire book will go to landfill, a green group has said.
The message comes after the city’s Environment Bureau announced last month that due to new requirements on waste exports to mainland China, only three types of paper would be collected from Hong Kong recycling bins starting from next year, and the glossy covers did not qualify.
These colourful pages are coated with a plastic layer and usually constitute about 3 per cent of a magazine, but they have fallen foul of stringent recycling rules announced by mainland authorities.
“Most of the glossy pages are on the cover or back page of the book,” The Green Earth said. “As long as the public remove these pages before putting them in to recycle, the material should be able to meet the requirements.”
China revealed a tweak in its national recycling policy in July with the aim of banning 24 types of polluting “foreign rubbish” imports.
Under the new rules, only paperboard, newspaper and office paper will be collected locally and sent across the border to be recycled.