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[1] Hong Kong’s municipal solid waste levels at landfills fell to 3.85 million tonnes in 2024, marking three straight years of decline. However, green groups have warned that the trend could be short-lived following the shelving of a controversial waste-charging scheme in 2024.
[2] The latest figures from authorities showed the average daily quantity of waste going to landfills was 10,510 tonnes. This represents a 3.4 per cent decrease from 10,884 tonnes in 2023. Plastic waste dropped by 11.1 per cent from last year, as per the government. The recovery rate of municipal solid waste increased from 33 per cent in 2023 to 34 per cent in 2024, thanks to ongoing efforts to promote waste reduction and recovery.
[3] Steven Chan Wing-kit, assistant environmental affairs manager at The Green Earth, a local NGO, said the drop was probably due to public awareness generated by the controversy in 2024 over the now-shelved “pay-as-you-throw” scheme. “Comparing these figures with those from the pandemic era is not reasonable, and the drop [in 2024] likely reflects a temporary spike in public awareness triggered by the debate over the waste-charging scheme,” he said.
[4] Chan added that the government needed to find ways to sustain public awareness and motivate residents to reduce their waste. The waste-charging scheme was first proposed in 2004 and passed by the Legislative Council in 2021. Under the plan, residents would have been required to dispose of rubbish in prepaid, designated bags costing between 30 HK cents and HK$11, with offenders facing penalties or even imprisonment.
[5] The policy was initially expected to take effect at the end of 2023, but was delayed twice before being shelved indefinitely in May 2024. Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan later said the scheme would remain shelved for the rest of the government’s term, citing strong public opposition as indicated by multiple surveys and economic challenges posed by the US-China trade war and rising geopolitical risks.
[6] Tse said the government could reintroduce the waste-charging scheme “when necessary”, but that a decline in waste volume and an uptick in recycling rates in recent years indicated that current efforts were very effective in achieving the same goal. Leanne Tam Wing-lam, a Greenpeace senior campaigner, also discussed the impact of the city’s ban on single-use plastic tableware, the first phase of which took effect in April 2024.
[7] She noted that while the amount of single-use plastic tableware being sent to landfills dropped by 14.8 per cent, suggesting the ban was effective on the surface, paper waste, including disposable tableware, increased by 20.5 per cent. “If we only ban single-use plastic without promoting reusable alternatives, we are merely shifting the waste from plastic to paper or other types of single-use disposables,” she said.
Source: South China Morning Post, December 22
