Hong Kong fails to meet midterm waste reduction target, with per capita waste production rising since 2013
- Though domestic waste fell annually by 1.0 per cent, commercial and industrial waste contributed to the increase
- The government is pinning its hopes on the forthcoming waste charge to cut output but critics say it needs to do a lot more to show it can deal with the problem
Hong Kong has failed to meet its midterm waste reduction target, as latest official figures showed that the daily municipal solid waste the average citizen sent into landfills last year had increased 14 per cent from 2013, when the target was set.
The target, introduced in the government’s Blueprint for Sustainable Use of Resources 2013-2022, is for daily municipal solid waste disposed per capita to drop by 20 per cent to 1kg or lower by 2017, and by 40 per cent to 0.8kg or less by 2022.
But statistics released by the Environmental Protection Department on Thursday showed that the indicator stood at 1.45kg last year.
“The increase in the [disposal rate] was partly caused by an increase in the amount of commercial and industrial waste being disposed of, which was partly attributable to a vibrant local economy in 2017,” the department said in a report.
Overall, the city generated 5.75 million tonnes of municipal solid waste – domestic, commercial and industrial – last year, an annual increase of 0.9 per cent.