Sze Lai-shan, deputy director of the Society for Community Organisation (SoCO), said the shelving was good news for the city’s underprivileged, who were worried about the extra living costs resulting from the policy.
“Suspending the scheme is the right thing to do, but what’s the point of shelving it indefinitely?” she asked.
“Members in our neighbourhood are not against the idea of being more environmentally friendly, they just question whether the waste-charging scheme can achieve its purpose.”
The pay-as-you-throw scheme, first proposed by authorities in 2004, would have required residents to dispose of their trash in designated plastic bags available in nine sizes for 30 HK cents to HK$11 (US$1.4).
The scheme’s citywide launch has already been pushed back twice, from last December to April and then to August 1.
Authorities opted to run a two-month trial scheme from April at 14 premises across the city, but the compliance rate was as low as 20 per cent.
Some residents taking part in the trial run said the bags were too expensive and the guidelines were unclear, while rubbish collectors faced a larger workload and longer working hours amid a manpower shortage.
“The trial scheme would have been more meaningful if the government had maintained better communication with the residents at three-nil buildings,” Sze said.
“How can the government gauge their challenges if they couldn’t even ensure every household gets their designated bags in the first place?”
The trial run included two “three-nil” buildings, meaning those without maintenance companies, owners’ corporations or residents’ organisations managing them, in Sham Shui Po.
Sze said members of the community wanted the government to increase the number of recycling spots across the city, including those for regular recyclables, food waste, as well as large and oddly sized items.
“It would be best if there was a recycling station every two blocks. That would be more convenient for the elderly people,” she said.
The government should also fight back against excessive packaging and address uncertainties over how any illegally disposed garbage would be handled, Sze said.
Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades president Simon Wong Ka-wo agreed that shelving the scheme would come as a relief to the industry.
“The waste charging scheme is causing us distress. It will increase the workload of employees and bring extra operating costs,” he said.
Wong estimated that larger restaurants would need to fork out an additional HK$8,000 to HK$10,000 every month to buy the designated bags and handle waste, while the smaller ones would need to pay HK$1,000 to HK$2,000.
He argued that such costs would only further hurt businesses amid the current economic downturn.
“The government should re-evaluate the details of the policy and try to obtain a consensus from every stakeholder before proceeding with its implementation, which should be done in a step-by-step approach,” he said.
“The result will only be counterproductive if the government pushes ahead with it when everyone is not ready.”
Grace Li Fai, a care home operator and honorary chairwoman of the Elderly Services Association of Hong Kong, agreed the suspension was “not a bad thing” for the industry as they had yet to find a solution to the increase in costs.
She earlier predicted that based on current usage levels, some of the larger care homes would need to pay hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars more each year on the designated bags.
Food waste and diapers accounted for most rubbish generated by care homes, but the latter was not recyclable and could hardly be avoided, Li said.
“The extra cost will inevitably be transferred to care home residents. We must not forget that wool always comes from the sheep’s back,” she said.
“But no one wants to raise the charges easily because the occupancy rate at many care homes has dropped to about 80 per cent after the Covid-19 pandemic. Everyone wants to retain their customers.”
Li said she wished authorities could roll out subsidies for industries that might struggle to cut back on their waste.
Johnnie Chan Chi-kau, former president of the Hong Kong Association of Property Management Companies, meanwhile, said his sector would welcome a delay, but he felt the scheme should not be scrapped since the relevant legislation had been enacted.
“We support the implementation of the scheme in phases,” Chan said, adding that government-owned premises could take the lead in implementing the policy.
He also addressed observations from a Legislative Council paper that said some cleaners impacted by the trial run had quit over an increased workload, saying he had not witnessed such a trend.
“In fact, we have seen an increase in manpower from 30 per cent to 100 per cent has been deployed to help deal with the amount of waste,” Chan said.
Additional reporting by Ambrose Li
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