Hong Kong plans to set 30% recycling target for plastic bottles, 10% for drink cartons
Hong Kong Free Press
Hong Kong authorities have proposed to impose initial targets on beverage suppliers to recycle 30 per cent of plastic bottles and 10 per cent of drink cartons.
The proposal is part of the government’s four-phased “producer responsibility scheme,” which seeks to impose penalties on drinks suppliers and container manufacturers that miss the targets.
The government presented the proposal to the environmental affairs panel in the Legislative Council on Monday. It did not specify the time frame for the initial targets, but said it planned to submit a bill to the legislature in the second quarter of this year.
Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan told an RTHK programme on Tuesday that the government aimed to have a 75 per cent recycling rate for plastic containers and 50 per cent for cartons within eight years.
Hong Kong disposes of around 7 million plastic containers every day, with most going to the city’s landfills, he added.
In 2023, plastic containers accounted for about 5 per cent of around 2,120 tonnes of daily plastic wastes in Hong Kong, according to official figures.
However, Tse acknowledged that industry representatives had expressed concerns about the difficulties in meeting the targets, given various sales channels in Hong Kong, such as supermarkets and local stores.
“It will be beneficial to set more flexible targets in the beginning to ensure that [suppliers] can actually achieve that,” he said in Cantonese.
He said there would be a year for the industry to prepare for the scheme and another year of adaptation, with each of the four phases of the scheme taking a year to implement.
“We think we can reach the final targets in six to eight years,” he said. “We can speed up if we see good progress.”
The government is still negotiating with the industry about the severity of penalties for missing recycling targets in the future, Tse said. “The principle is that the penalties will be higher than the recycling costs, so that they will have an incentive to recycle.”
Consumers to bear costs
Speaking in the same programme, Simon Wong, chairperson of the Chamber of Food and Beverage Industry of Hong Kong, said that recycling would likely incur additional costs, which would eventually be transferred to consumers.
“It is difficult for suppliers to do the recycling themselves because they don’t know where the plastic containers and the drink cartons end up,” Wong said in Cantonese.
“We will outsource the task to recycling companies, which will charge fees. The costs will eventually be borne by consumers,” he added.
The city has banned the use of styrofoam tableware as well as most single-use plastics such as utensils, stirrers and plates since last year.
A second phase ban on items such as plastic cups and food containers will not have a timetable for enforcement due to a lack of alternatives in the market, Tse previously said.
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