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Hong Kong environmental issues
OpinionHong Kong Opinion
David Dodwell
David Dodwell

Outside In | 8 steps to get Hong Kong’s waste management back on track

  • After shelving the city’s waste charging scheme, the government needs to rid itself of the bureaucratic shackles that have led to decades of inaction
  • Officials must create a system that can meet people’s needs before landfills run out of space in 2026

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Residents and cleaners dispose of household waste at Sun Tsui Estate in Tai Wan on May 27. Photo: Eugene Lee
David Dodwell
For Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s “result-oriented” administration, the crumbling of Hong Kong’s urgently needed waste management scheme must be mortifying. But better to pull the plug on a bad plan doomed to fail than to press on blindly. The challenge now is to move onto Plan B as Hong Kong faces hard deadlines as existing landfills reach bursting point by 2026.
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As Ian Brownlee made clear in the Post on Wednesday, experts from the private sector offered the government a Plan B back in 2013. With admirable discretion, he recalls that “the government’s Plan A was so entrenched in the bureaucratic process than any alternative was simply not considered”.

The Plan B from the Integrated Waste Management Action Group had four elements: the prime objective was to reduce waste going to landfills or incinerators; four regional sites should be adopted for fully integrated waste management facilities; all municipal waste should be processed through high-capacity waste sorting plants first; and those sites should use small-scale waste-to-energy plants as a last resort.

Plan A is now formally off the table, providing a period of forced review and reflection. I would like to offer my own eight-point list of principles that should provide the foundations for any such Plan B.

First and foremost, waste management should be regarded as essential infrastructure, the same as roads, sewers, floor prevention or even education. It should be provided for the public good out of public coffers.

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It is bizarre that we can spend billions of dollars building road networks that are hundreds of kilometres long, or colossal subterranean flood drainage systems, without a thought for separate charges while at the same time nickel-and-diming residents over plastic bags for waste disposal. The priority must be infrastructure that works seamlessly with invisible efficiency, not what size bags we use.
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