By Paul Zimmerman
With the decision to postpone waste charging, there is a need to refocus support on the cleaners who sort and collect recyclables in households, businesses, buildings, estates and public areas. The cleaners play a key role in helping building managers minimise waste.
Contrary to the popular opinion that the city does a poor job of recycling, Hong Kong is quite successful: we recycle 42 per cent of our used paper, and 92 per cent of our waste metal, including aluminium cans. This is thanks to the efforts of a dense network of cleaners.
In addition to the estimated 2,900 scavengers who collect cardboard and other material in the streets, 13,200 street cleaners, 72,700 estate cleaners and 338,189 foreign domestic helpers – over 10 per cent of our working population – are engaged in handling our waste. Many cleaners separate and store material to sell to recyclers who collect it at regular times.
However, few buildings have dedicated rooms to store recyclable material. The space used by cleaners for sorting and storage of said material is often an informal arrangement. Once we recognise the role cleaners play in our recycling network, we should support them with the space and facilities needed to collect, separate and sell recyclable material.
Drink Without Waste therefore urges government to expedite legislation mandating commercial buildings, residential estates, housing estates and residential buildings with a higher number of units to separate and recycle waste for proper disposal by recycling companies. This legislation encourages property managers to create space for recycling, and enhance transparency in the management of recyclables.
We must also be generous and let cleaners keep the income from the sales of recyclable materials. Part of the success of the cleaners’ recycling effort lies in its informal nature. The money earned from selling recyclables is an unrecorded source of income shared by the cleaners.
If the role of cleaners in recycling is formalised, we risk the financial incentive that is crucial to the success of recycling being removed. Instead, government and property managers need to be creative in promoting collaboration with cleaners to improve recycling rates.
Finally, we need to assist the market. Paper and metal have a higher intrinsic value. Plastics, however, have a low value. The government has announced plans to introduce a legislative framework and subsidiary legislation for producer responsibility schemes for plastic beverage containers, beverage cartons, electric vehicle batteries, vehicle tyres, lead-acid batteries, and so on. This will help increase the value and recycling rates of waste plastics and facilitate the development of the local recycling industry and collection network.
Paul Zimmerman is the general manager of Drink Without Waste, an initiative to reduce the volume of used beverage packaging going to waste.
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