A former environment minister and a waste reduction expert have urged against delaying Hong Kong’s waste charging scheme any further, after a pro-Beijing heavyweight called the scheme “mission impossible.”
Wong Kam-sing, who was Hong Kong’s secretary for the environment from 2012 to 2022, told reporters on Tuesday morning that Hong Kong should cherish the policy that had been so long in the making.
“If we miss this opportunity, how could we live up to the expectations of young people? What message we are delivering to the youth [if we abandon the scheme]?” Wong said. He was environment chief when the waste charging bill was introduced to the legislature in 2014 and passed in 2021.
Jonathan Wong, a professor specialising in waste management at the Hong Kong Baptist University, said on RTHK on Tuesday that recycling had been on the rise globally and that the pro-Beijing figure who criticised plan was not familiar with this trend.
Wong said that despite there not being enough government-provided recycling facilities, Hong Kong could not wait until it had sufficient recycling facilities to roll out the waste charging scheme. Because people will have to pay for what they dispose of, he said residents would take more care to reduce the amount they disposed of and recycle more.
The city’s leader John Lee said on Tuesday morning when he met the press that the scheme had been passed into law, and authorities would announce further deployment plans in May or June.
Since 2005
The idea of imposing a waste charge was first introduced in 2005. According to a policy framework submitted by the Environment Protection Department to the legislature, authorities sought to “impose a direct and explicit charge on each individual for the amount of waste one discards.”
The charge was to be “a direct tool to change behaviour” in a city where landfill capacity was even then predicted to be exhausted.
The scheme was finally scheduled to launch on April 1. In January, the government pushed the official roll-out date to August, citing “public concerns,” although a trial run for the scheme started on April 1 at 14 premises.
One week into the pilot scheme, Lo Man Tuen, a pro-Beijing heavyweight and a vice-chairman of All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, said in an opinion piece for Ming Pao that the government should consider delaying or abandoning the scheme and focus on recycling ahead of other measures.
Lo added that the controversial scheme was “originally proposed by radical opposition. “
“The controversial waste charging scheme was proposed by radical opposition factions (some of whom are even in jail), and it was a policy implemented by the government during the last term facing pressure in the highly politicalised environment. It was a mission impossible from the very beginning,” Lo wrote in Chinese. He did not mention who among the opposition camp raised the idea.
In response, former under secretary for the environment Christine Loh told RTHK on Tuesday morning that the idea of implementing a waste charge had been raised when Hong Kong was led by former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, and that such schemes had long existed in different countries.
Loh said that the scheme “was not suggested by a specific faction” and that those who raised doubts should do check their facts first.
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