IN DETAIL: WASTE MANAGEMENT
No Time to Waste Hong Kong’s landfills are almost full, and China is no longer accepting waste exports for recycling. What next for the city’s waste management plan? – By Sarah Graham
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n the mid 1990s, the idea of a municipal waste a coincidence that in 2018, China stopped accepting charging scheme for the city was first mooted, waste exports for recycling from, among other and in 2005 it was finally formally proposed by the places, Hong Kong. This puts significant pressure Government of the Hong Kong SAR. Fifteen years on the city’s three operational landfill sites, which on, and the bill – which could soon find themselves would see households unable to take more waste. charged between HK$33 to On its waste website, the HK$51 a month to dispose Environmental Protection of their rubbish and which Department (EDP) admitted Today in Hong Kong, over 80% of was expected to reduce in 2015 that the landfills waste by 40 % per capita “initially were intended the packaging used for beverages by 2022 – has now run to last until 2020, but they end up as waste in landfill. out of time in this Legco could be full several years session and will need to be earlier if nothing is done to presented all over again. reduce wasteloads”. Today in Hong Kong, over 80% of the packaging used for beverages end up as waste in landfill. We sent a total of 5.87 million tonnes of solid waste to local landfills in 2018, an increase over the 5.66 million tonnes in 2017. It’s not
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The government hopes one way to ease the pressure on landfills will be the construction of the Integrated Waste Management Facility (IWMF) to be built on an artificial island beside Shek Kwu Chau. The controversial plan has
