Persistence needed to ensure pilot recycling scheme is not a waste

Hong Kong needs better waste management and more recycling as landfills run out of space. The government is conducting a voluntary small-scale trial of a scheme debated for 20 years and approved by the Legislative Council in 2021. It requires participating residents and businesses to pay for disposal bags. The scheme is controversial. It already has been delayed twice since December. The target date has now been put back to August. Before the trial began, there were calls to delay it again, or even drop it. They have grown louder since a rocky start gave opponents fresh ammunition. Now Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu says the government is taking a wait-and-see approach before deciding in

May or June whether to go ahead. Multiple glitches at the start of the trial are regrettable. They do nothing for public confidence. But they are not beyond remedy. Officials should focus on learning and implementing lessons from them if the scheme is to get a fair trial.

First impressions left residents, especially the elderly, “confused, sceptical and frustrated”, according to a Post report that indicated a lack of detailed preparation and public education. Complaints ranged from supplied bags being too small, or too large, or supplied without ties, or not supplied at all, to insufficient food-waste collection bins and inadequate operating hours for mobile bins.

Participants included restaurants, malls, and private and public housing estates. Residents were required to put their trash in bags available in nine sizes, priced at 30 HK cents to HK$11.

It is good to hear from Lee that the government is serious about the test “to ensure we have collected sufficient data to let us decide how to take it forward”. Authorities would consider factors including the participation rate of the voluntary trial – as low as 20 per cent to begin with in some cases – and provision of supporting facilities.

He stopped short of saying whether this included pushing back the start date or phasing in full implementation. Further delay may be defensible if the end result is demonstrably better. A thorough trial of the scheme is paramount given the sharp division of opinion between supporters, such as former environment minister Wong Kam-sing and former environment undersecretary Christine Loh Kung-wai, and critics including lawmaker Lee Wai-king of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.

The waste-charging scheme will affect every household and business. Critics argue Hong Kong is so far behind best practice in waste management now that further delay for the sake of getting it right would not make much difference. That said, reduction of waste and carbon emissions and recycling are works in progress that call for longer-term and evolving solutions.