新聞文章

(28 April 2025, SCMP) It's been a year since Hong Kong shelved its plan to charge households for the waste they produce. Are we any closer to introducing waste charging?

Earlier this month, Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan said authorities had been assessing the situation and would report its findings soon to the Legislative Council's panel on environmental affairs. He noted many conditions had to be in place before the scheme could be rolled out.

We believe the time is right. Over the past year, the government has enhanced its support for recycling and public education. This is a key improvement, given that low recycling rates and low public awareness were the main reasons for the botched roll-out last year.

Tse highlighted significant progress made, including an 80 per cent increase in visits to the Green@Community recycling network and a nearly 60 per cent rise in recyclables collected in 2024. The government has installed 1,200 smart collection bins for food waste in housing estates across the city, with the aim of increasing the number to 1,600 this year.

Meanwhile, the daily per capita municipal solid waste disposal rate fell from 1.44kg in 2023 to 1.4kg in 2024.

Besides, waste charging would benefit the economy, as South Korea's experience shows. It introduced waste charging in 1995. By 2004, it saw a 24 per cent reduction in waste volume and gained about 8 trillion won (HK$43.4 trillion) in economic benefits, in terms of avoided waste treatment costs and the market value of increased recycling products, according to a study by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Waste charging could yield similar benefits for Hong Kong. Our Hong Kong Foundation researcher Peter Lam Kung-shing has found that every tonne in waste reduction generates a net benefit of HK$955.50, while every tonne of waste recycling yields HK$125.60. The estimated net benefit of waste charging is HK$637.3 million per year.

Although Hong Kong's new waste-to-energy facility is expected to help ease our waste crisis, waste reduction and recycling must remain the core part of the solution, given the high social costs and environmental risks associated with incineration.

We urge a relaunch of the waste charging scheme this summer, starting with government buildings (except public housing estates) and expanding it to the business sector and the entire community next year.

Rico Wong, deputy director, The Green Earth

South China Morning Post, After a year’s delay, Hong Kong is ready to roll out waste charging