Hong Kong Needs to Embrace a Holistic Approach to Waste Management

Abstract

Hong Kong’s waste problems are challenging and have become increasingly intractable. The city relies on landfilling as its core approach to handling over 10,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste every day (2015 figure). Most of Hong Kong’s recyclables were used to be exported to the mainland and other Asian cities. However, since early 2018, mainland authorities have tightened the regulations over imported wastes. As a consequence, an increasing volume of locally generated waste is now going into the landfills. The projected early saturation of the three strategic landfills has intensified the waste management problem in our land-scarce city. The chapter examines the crux of the waste problem from multiple perspectives, including the government’s position, the business sector’s approaches and the general public’s individual behaviour. In order to cope with the waste problems successfully, there is a need to adopt a holistic waste management approach. Public education is an extremely challenging task that requires continuous investments to produce desirable results. However, such investments have proven to be seriously inadequate in Hong Kong. Although recycling bins have been put up in public places for over 20 years, non-recyclables and contaminated items are still often found in the recycling bins. Without an effective public education programme, the provision of hardware by itself will only yield a half-baked solution. To solve our city’s waste problem, a fundamental change in people’s mindset on waste is absolutely necessary. We need to strive for a zero-waste economy by treating waste as a resource, and we need to find a way to extend the lifespan of consumables rather than constantly replacing workable gadgets with trendy new products.