An investigation by Hong Kong news media outlet HK01 has found that nearly two-thirds of housing estates surveyed, both public and private, have sent plastic bottles collected in recycling bins to landfills. 

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HK01 surveyed 14 housing estates and found that nine were sending plastic bottles intended to be recycled to landfills. In 2019, reporters at the news outlet attached GPS trackers onto a number of plastic bottles that were put inside the recycling bins of the housing estates in Hong Kong. 

The journalists located seven of the devices in the Nim Wan and Lin Ma Hang landfills, and two devices in waste collection stations in West Kowloon and Sha Tin. Shockingly, five of the nine housing estates sending recyclable waste to landfills and waste collection stations had been awarded under the Environment Protection Department’s (EPD) Source Separation of Domestic Waste Award Scheme in 2018/2019. One estate, Metropolis Phase 2, has received the highest “Diamond Grade” for two consecutive years.  

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West New Territories Landfill. (Source GovHK).

Cleaners at some of the estates were interviewed and said that much of the plastic is not recycled and is ‘abandoned as garbage’. Others claimed that collectors had not picked up recyclables from the building for at least six months, and that cleaners had to therefore send them to municipal waste management. 

The Plastic Recycling Landscape in Hong Kong

Some attribute the lack of recycling to the low value of plastics in Hong Kong. According to local environmental group, Green Sense, one kilogram of collected, separated and processed plastic waste may generate HKD$0.30- $0.50 for recyclers. The price of recycled plastics has been in decline since 2018. In Mainland China (where Hong Kong was sending much of its waste before China banned foreign waste), the value per ton dropped from 8010 yuan (HKD$8700, USD$1100) in October 2018 to 7164 yuan (HKD7800, USD$1012) at the end of 2019. 

Further, in June 2019, recycling prices for paper and cardboard were slashed by nearly half, adding to the woes of waste collectors in Hong Kong and contributing to a buildup of waste in landfills, which are projected to be full by the end of the year. To meet the city’s demand for waste disposal, the government is expanding the South-east New Territories Landfill by an additional 13 hectares, which should meet the city’s landfill needs until 2030. 

The Hong Kong Environmental Protection and Recycle Industry Sustainable Development Association says that the government and property management companies should provide monetary subsidies to recyclers to incentivise the proper collection and recycling of plastics. The association also urged property management companies and housing estates to disclose the names of recyclers, something that is not currently done, meaning that residents have no channels to monitor recyclers. It also urged the Environmental Protection Department to compel estates to publish detailed monthly recycling records and receipts.

Recent statistics from the Environmental Protection Department have indicated that the average daily disposal quantity of plastic bags in 2017 rose to 793 metric tons, just short of the 867 ton level recorded in 2008, a year before the levy scheme was introduced.

In 2018, Hong Kongers sent an average of 1.53kgs per person of solid waste to landfills every day; in 2013, the Hong Kong government set a target that, by 2022, each person would throw away no more than 0.8kg of waste per day. It is unknown whether waste being sent to landfills has increased or decreased in the months since the outbreak of the coronavirus outbreak, as municipal waste data for this period has not yet been collected.

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Facts About Plastic Pollution & Recycling in Hong Kong

The city sent a total of 5.87 million tonnes of solid waste to local landfills in 2018. Just 30% of solid waste was recycled in the city in 2018, which is made all the more concerning due to the fact that recycling facilities in the city are very basic, sorted by hand. In 2016, just 14% of plastic was recycled and in 2017, it was estimated that Hong Kong threw away 5.2 million bottles every day.

According to WWF Hong Kong, about 80% of the city’s marine litter is plastic, especially disposable products such as plastic bottles, plastic bags and packaging material. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hong Kong government has adopted two subsidy schemes for recycling facilities that are currently financed by its recycling fund. The first is the One-off Rental Support Scheme (ORSS), which assists recycling facilities by covering 50% of their rent or up to HKD$25 000. The second is the One-off Recycling Industry Anti-epidemic Scheme (ORIAS), which helps support recycling facilities’ operational costs with HKD$20 000 every month. So far, over 580 applications have been approved for the funds, which have provided over HKD$90 million to recyclers in the past few months. 

However, there has been a delay in the implementation of the Legislative Council’s Municipal Solid Waste Charging Scheme (WCS). The scheme was formally introduced in 2018 and taxes residents according to how much waste they send to landfills. The fee for disposing a ten-litre bag of waste is set at HKD$11, meaning that the average household would pay between HKD$33 to $51 a month. 

It is vital that we reduce our use of plastic on a personal consumption level, but it is also imperative that the Hong Kong government -and others- implement effective recycling measures and financially incentivise recyclers to collect plastic waste. Our landfills will not be able to bear the burden of the city’s waste for much longer.   

Featured image by: South TinHau markers

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A Greenpeace East Asia report has found that the largest supermarkets in Hong Kong, particularly Dairy Farm, the parent company of Hong Kong’s largest supermarket chain, Wellcome, have failed to implement substantial or innovative plastic-free policies.

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To put together the report, the researchers distributed questionnaires to the seven largest supermarket chains in Hong Kong according to market share and number of stores, including Wellcome, YATA, City’super, ParknShop, Fusion, U Select, Taste and Marks & Spencer. The supermarkets were assessed in terms of four aspects, namely ‘plastic-free policies’, ‘plastic-reducing measures’, ‘initiatives and innovations’ and ‘information transparency’. The group assigned the supermarkets with scores out of 100; Dairy Farm had a score of 15.5 and A.S. Watson, 27.1. 

Generally, the researchers determined that the performance of all chains is unsatisfactory and urged them to abandon excess plastic packaging as soon as possible.

Supermarket Initiatives and Innovations

A.S. Watson, which owns ParknShop and Fusion, among others, has set up a refilling station where non-packaged personal and household items are sold and customers can bring their own containers. The group has claimed that the idea will be rolled out to other branches. They, as well as City’super and YATA, offer discounts to customers who bring their own containers to the cooked food section. A.S. Watson has also stopped selling plastic straws, but not other disposable plastic products. Other supermarkets have not followed their lead, and have no plans in place to abandon disposable plastic products. 

YATA provides customers with plastic-free shopping options, such as non-packaged oil and vinegar. However, customers have to use containers provided by the supermarket. YATA has claimed they will set up refilling stations.

Other supermarkets surveyed do not provide plastic-free options and have shown no willingness to reduce waste at source, replace disposable containers with reusable ones or make changes to their logistics.

Generally speaking, A.S. Watson, YATA and Dairy Farm performed better in going plastic-free than the four other supermarket chains, while City’super, AEON, China Resources Vanguard and Marks & Spencer received ‘extremely low marks’. In fact, China Resources Vanguard and Marks & Spencer have never disclosed any information on plastic-free policies or measures, which the report determined to be ‘unacceptable’. 

Overall, none of the supermarkets surveyed have formulated comprehensive policies to go completely plastic-free.

Supermarket’s Transparency of Information

YATA documents its use of different types of disposable plastic packaging and is willing to dispense it publicly. A.S. Watson and Dairy Farm, who owns Wellcome, provide the use of plastic packaging on some of their products, while other supermarkets surveyed do not provide such information nor do they intend to. 

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According to the report, customers in Hong Kong generally expect supermarkets to go plastic-free. In April 2019, the Hong Kong Shue Yan University conducted a poll that found that over 90% of respondents agreed that supermarkets should remove unnecessary packaging and nearly 70% of respondents preferred to shop at supermarkets that reduce the use of excess packaging. In June of that year, Greenpeace collected data on the use of plastic in supermarkets and found that over 80% of stocked goods were wrapped in plastic and nearly half were wrapped by the supermarkets themselves. All sliced fruits were wrapped in plastic and over 90% of vegetables and cooked food were wrapped in plastic. Additionally, 74% and 67% of fresh pastries from supermarket-owned brands and whole fruits were wrapped in plastic respectively.  

Recommendations given by the group include the adoption of comprehensive policies, such as by setting a clear timetable for achieving bigger goals of using less plastic, and increasing transparency regarding whether it has gone plastic-free. 

Countries like China, India, Italy, France and numerous African countries have implemented plastic bag levy schemes or plastic bag bans. In 2018, the EU passed the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy bill to change the design, use, production and recycling methods of plastic products. The European Commission shortly thereafter proposed a motion to gradually ban the 10 most commonly found disposable plastic products. 

In the Policy Address in October 2019, the Hong Kong government mentioned ‘cooperating with the retail industry to promote and encourage reduction in the use of plastic packaging’, but so far no meaningful action has been seen in this regard. 

According to the report, polystyrene (PS) and polyethylene (PE) are found all over the coastal waters in Hong Kong, and are also commonly found in disposable food packaging. Therefore, supermarkets play a crucial role in reducing pollution from plastic packaging. 

Global plastic production has surged in the last 50 years, from 15 million tons in 1964 to 311 million tons in 2014, of which 26% is used in plastic packaging. Discarded plastic has become a prevalent part of almost every ecosystem on the planet, from the ocean, where 90% of seabirds have been found with plastic in their bodies, to microplastics that have recently been discovered in Antarctic ice. 

Recycling is also not the best, nor is it the easiest way to solve the problem. Since the 1950s, the world has produced around 8.3 billion tons of plastic, among which only 9% was recycled. In 2013, 14% of the plastic packaging used globally was recycled, 14% of the remaining plastic was incinerated, 40% was dumped in landfills and almost one third of it was dumped into the natural environment. 

It is clear that plastic packaging has never been appropriately dealt with; governments should therefore refrain from touting recycling as the best solution. The production, transportation, consumption and post-consumption stages should be considered, and recyclable packaging, innovative logistics and sales methods, and making sure that resources are reused and recycled in a circular economy can we truly alleviate pollution caused by plastics. 

This is especially true during the current COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen the disposal of a significant amount of waste, such as that of masks and hand sanitiser, as people try to protect themselves.

Hall Sion Chan, campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia, says in a letter, “The results make it clear that supermarkets may have relied on false solutions to tackle the plastics problem” and uses the example of Dairy Farm reducing the weight of several plastic items instead of getting rid of plastic items when wrapping their products. 

Supermarkets in Hong Kong need to reconsider the necessity of plastic packaging. In a city that generates as much waste as Hong Kong, supermarkets can play an important role in easing this problem. That they choose not to is an egregious disrespect for its customers. 

Featured image by: Ricardo/Flickr