Elderly care homes in Hong Kong may have to spend hundreds of thousands – or even millions – of dollars a year to comply with the government’s new waste charging scheme starting in April, an industry representative has said.
The municipal waste disposal charge, which will come into force on April 1, may drastically increase the cost of running around 1,100 local elderly care homes which must dispose of clinical waste such as diapers, Elderly Services Association of Hong Kong honorary chairwoman Grace Li said on RTHK on Thursday.
The scheme approved by the legislature in August 2021 requires general waste to be disposed of in designated bags of various sizes, while a designated label costing HK$11 each should be affixed to oversized waste such as large furniture before disposal.
The capacity of the designated bags ranges from three litres to 100 litres, costing between HK$0.3 and HK$11 each. The bags or labels could be bought at authorised outlets, including supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies and online shopping platforms.
Li said on Thursday that the new levy would not help reduce waste at care homes for the elderly, where most of the refuse was non-recyclable clinical waste. Some residents would need to change diapers six to eight times every day, and these must be wrapped properly with an additional plastic bag to prevent leakage, the industry representative said.
“For large-scale care homes… this means an additional cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars or even up to millions a year. This operational cost is quite excessive,” Li said, adding the waste disposal requirements would increase the workload of staff.
Li, who is also a member of the Elderly Commission which advises the government, said the sector had expressed its concerns to the previous administration. She called on the government to exempt care homes from using the designated labels when tossing away mattresses and other oversized waste.
Publicity work
In an interview with Beijing-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po published on Thursday, Director of Environmental Protection Samuel Chui said the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) had organised more than 50 talks to explain the new waste scheme to the property management and cleaning sectors.
Chui said promotional videos and social media posts would be used to help the public understand the charge: “Whether we understand something often depends on our willingness to seek clarity. If we choose not to make the effort, then it will remain unclear.”
Director of Information Services Fletch Chan also defended the government’s publicity work on Thursday, saying the EPD had put in a lot of effort but promotional work “could always be done more.”
The pro-Beijing DAB party and the Home Affairs Department organised a talk on Wednesday evening for representatives of owners’ corporations, owners’ committees and management offices at 13 housing estates in Tai Po.
Non-compliance
According to the DAB, attendees raised concerns that the scheme may burden low-income families and the elderly. Some also asked about ways to handle conflicts over the usage of the designated disposal bags.
Under Secretary for Environment and Ecology Diane Wong said frontline cleaners only needed to remind residents if they did not dispose their waste using the designated bag. If they refused to cooperate, the cleaning staff did not have to worry about legal liabilities.
She said the government would set up a hotline for people to report cases of non-compliance. The authorities would try to give verbal warnings, but enforcement action would be taken in cases of repeated violations, Wong said.
Disassembling items
On Wednesday, Assistant Director (Municipal Solid Waste Charging) Theresa Wu of the EPD said on RTHK that if an object to be disposed of did not fit into the designated bags, then a label costing HK$11 should be attached to the item.
In response to questions about handling long objects such as a broomstick or a floor fan, Wu said people could “saw them into two pieces” and put them in designated bags.
“I believe Hong Kong people are very clever. They will find the most cost-effective method. Paying HK$11 for [disposing] of a mop handle does seem a bit expensive,” she said in Cantonese.
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