Hongkongers in trial run of waste-charging scheme worry over insufficient bins for food scraps, limited opening hours

An insufficient number of bins for food scraps and their limited operating hours may prompt Hongkongers to throw away the recyclable material as rubbish, participants in a trial run of the city’s waste-charging scheme have said.

The trial, launched on Monday, is expected to gauge the city’s readiness for the official start of the scheme in August, which requires all residents to throw out their rubbish in government-approved bags available in nine sizes at a cost of 30 HK cents (4 US cents) to HK$11. An HK$11 special label is also available for large or oddly shaped items.

Odi Chan Fung-yee, manager of trial participant Hsin Kuang Banquet Hall in San Po Kong, called for more support for food waste recycling on Tuesday, as the restaurant would have to spend as much as HK$6,000 on the designated bags a month, which was more than their usual expense.

“The existing workflow in our kitchen already separates food waste from other trash … if we can have a food waste recycling bin, we will save a lot of trash bags,” she told a radio programme.

“Our manpower does not allow us to deliver the food waste to [public] recycling spots, they may not be willing to do so either.”

Chan was also concerned that they needed to use more bags, as they could only use 70 per cent of the capacity of each bag to ensure it could be tied up perfectly as required by the government, saying “the cost would be much higher that way”.

Fourteen locations were involved in the soft launch: one government building, two public housing estates, three private residential buildings, two care homes, two shopping centres and four eateries.

Genius Court, a private residential estate in Kowloon City which has 140 households, also took part in the pilot scheme.