Sheepish on Charging for Garbage in HK

Residents will be charged for their garbage in August now

Hong Kong was going to finally implement its municipal waste-charging scheme on April 1, but apparently the public is still unsure about how it all works and so it will be delayed by another four months to August.

The public's lack of understanding is apparently the fault of the Environment Bureau and Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has asked the bureau to work harder on how to educate people on how to dispose of their waste properly.

Shouldn't that have been done ages ago? Or did the bureau -- and by extension the government -- assume everyone knows what they're supposed to do?

There are nine different sized garbage bags

From August, Hong Kong residents can't just throw their garbage into random plastic bags -- they must use designated ones that they can buy at supermarkets, convenience stores and pharmacies. They come in nine different sizes and the cost of these bags will pay for handling the trash in the landfill.

The scheme is in the hopes that people will find it expensive to pay for their trash to be processed so they will be incentivised to reduce their waste by recycling paper, plastic, and glass, or even do the dirty deed of separating their food waste and disposing of it in a special food waste bin.

But does the government have enough capacity to handle so much recycling? And does the general public know what can and cannot be recycled? 

The current state of awareness of separating waste is horrendous just by looking at the garbage boxes on the street with several different slots for paper, plastic and metal. Many people just randomly throw their garbage into any slot! More education should have been done ages ago.

Do people even know how to use this properly?

Nevertheless the fact that the new garbage scheme will be delayed another four months is pathetic -- why not start it anyway in residential areas because there is a six-month grace period? People will learn very quickly on how to use the bags and reduce their waste by recycling. There will be growing pains, but people learn by doing.

For restaurants there has to be a way for them to collect and dispose of it efficiently. Simon Wong is the honorary chairman of the Institute of Dining Professionals and says sorting out food waste means restaurants will have to hire more staff to do this when it's already hard enough to find dishwashers.

There is also the valid concern about preventing mosquitoes and food odours when dealing with food waste.

Restaurants don't have the time or energy to take out food waste and dispose of it elsewhere. The government has to make it easy for them to do this.

Sadly it seems the officials who thought of this waste-charging scheme don't have any idea how to put this in practice because they don't even do this at home! Someone else takes out the garbage for them so they have no inkling of what is involved. Have they ever separated their garbage and taken it to recycling spots? If only they knew... 

HK Finally Bans Plastic... in 2024

Finally putting a stop to using single-use plastic tableware

Hong Kong is finally taking the giant step to ban single-use plastic tableware from Earth Day on April 22, 2024. 

There will be two phases: The first prohibits the sale and distribution of plastic tableware, such as cutlery, plastic straws, stirrers, plates and cups. 

Some items that will be banned from next April

Restaurants won't be able to provide plastic tableware for customers to dine-in either, while hotels and guest houses won't be able to distribute plastic toiletries and plastic water bottles in rooms.

The second phase starts in 2025, which will ban the sale and distribution of multipack rings (the plastic used to keep canned drinks together), tablecloths, and even plastic stemmed dental floss.

For many Hongkongers and restaurants, using plastic tablecloths is a staple -- it makes cleaning up so much easier. But alas that will be no more. It will be interesting to see how the catering industry deals with this. Some households may hoard as much plastic tablecloth as they can!

The hospitality industry and the suppliers that sell them the small plastic bottles of shampoo and body lotion, plastic toothbrushes and other toiletries may see this as an excellent way to cut costs, and resort to offering soaps in large bottles (that they hope guests won't steal)... 

How water will be served in hotel rooms will be interesting, as one would assume bottled water would be cleaner than water served in a reusable container. Perhaps they will go back to when rooms had thermoses of hot water?

Small hotel toiletries will be banned as well

Nevertheless, these steps are a good start for Hong Kong, which has literally dragged its feet for years on this issue. It's time people start to carry their own reusable cups and keep utensils with them at work. It's not hard to do...