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Opinion | To fight plastic bottle waste, Hong Kong needs a strong producer responsibility scheme
- The suggestions put forward in the government’s public consultation will only make the city’s plastic bottle problem worse
- Mandatory reduction and recycling targets with meaningful penalties for producers and importers will help create the incentives to fix the problem
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NGOs worldwide frequently conduct beach clean-ups. The International Coastal Cleanup 2020 Report found that plastic drinks bottles and their caps ranked third and fourth respectively among the collected waste, behind food wrappers and cigarette butts.
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This plastic waste poses a serious threat to the ecosystem and public health. Governments must deploy effective legislation to stop it from damaging the environment.
The Green Earth has conducted brand audits on drinks bottles found on beaches in the past three years, aiming to lobby producers to clean up their mess and for the government to enact producer responsibility legislation. The latest findings released in March show C’estbon tops the list, followed by Coca-Cola and Vita.
The government’s public consultation for a producer responsibility scheme on plastic drinks bottles is open until May 21. I urge people to submit their views.
There are three suggestions in the consultation that will only exacerbate the problem. They are: the 10-cent rebate per bottle returned; not deploying a deposit-return system, and; only regulating plastic bottles.
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When I was a child back in 1960s, I remember a 20-cent deposit-return system: beverage producers were keen to collect and reuse all glass bottles, so they deployed a system with a meaningful deposit.
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