Target packaging to ease waste costs, Greenpeace urges

Campaign group wants regulations to reduce size and amount of wrapping when people buy things

A green group is urging the government to do more to regulate packaging ahead of a controversial waste-charging scheme, after finding excess wrapping will account for over 50 per cent of the potential cost incurred by some households.

Greenpeace said yesterday that without the necessary regulation in place, residents would be left footing the bill for excessive packaging produced by companies, although it still called for the scheme to proceed as scheduled.

“They have to regulate the producers,” Greenpeace campaigner Leanne Tam Wing-lam said. “If [residents] do not have a choice when they buy things … then it will be unfair for them because they will have to pay for those useless packaging.”

The waste-charging scheme, scheduled to start on August 1, will require households to pay for the rubbish they produce at a rate of 11 cents per litre. Residents must buy designated rubbish bags, ranging in size from 3 litres to 100 litres, before disposal.

In March, Greenpeace collected the waste generated by 45 households ranging in size from one to five people. Across the seven-day study, the group found that waste generated from takeaways amounted to 20.8 per cent of surveyed households’ total waste, while other forms of packaging accounted for 28.4 per cent.

An average two-person household would spend about HK$40 a month on the bags, of which HK$21 would be for takeaway and other packaging.

Tam said while restaurants would have to switch to non-plastic alternatives to tableware later this month, this did not address the “root problem” as the alternatives were still single-use items that would end up in landfills. The government should look at regulating the size and amount of packaging, and stores should offer customers packaging-free options and borrow-return services to reduce single-use items, she said.

Discussions among politicians and former officials have grown increasingly tense following the April 1 roll-out of a test run at 14 locations. Some have called for the twice-delayed scheme to be scrapped altogether, while Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has reiterated that the government is taking a wait-and-see approach based on the results of the trial.

But the response from participants has been lukewarm, with the take-up rate at one location as low as 20 per cent over the past week. Some also complained about the poor design of bags and the lack of recycling facilities.

Speaking at the Legislative Council yesterday, Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan conceded the pilot project had caused more work for cleaners and raised business costs. He said his team would hold a survey on the pilot scheme later and the Environmental Protection Department would conduct inspections to address any problems.

Greenpeace said the scheme should still go ahead, pointing to success in Seoul and Taipei.

The disposal rate of household garbage fell 65 per cent in Taipei in the decade after waste charging began in 2000, according to the Environment Bureau. Seoul’s per capita waste disposal dropped by 40 per cent from its waste-charging implementation in 1995.