The landfills in Hong Kong will be saturated in a blink. The three existing landfills in Hong Kong are expected to be full within four years. Of these the one in Ta Kwu Ling will be full the soonest in the coming year. Three thousand two hundred tonnes of food waste which account for one third of the total solid waste are sent to landfills every day. No wonder some suggest imposing daily household food waste charges to ease the situation. However, I do not agree with this solution.
I do not favour imposing household food waste charge as it will put a burden on the poor. It has been estimated that each household is to pay $30-60 levy per month, which seems a small amount of money to us but it means a lot to the poor. On the other hand, the waste charges simply mean nothing to the rich. They are fortunate enough to cook more than they need. The levy does not affect them at all as they do not care about this small amount of money. Therefore, the food waste charge policy not only fails to reduce waste, but it also worsens the situation of the poor.
While the scheme is intended to reduce waste, in practice it will bring another environmental issue. Some poor people may not be able to afford the levy. To evade the charge, some of themor those not supporting the charge may dump the waste to the rubbish bins in the street illegally. This highly affects the hygiene of Hong Kong. It also means heavier work for street sweepers and adds pressure for the authority as lots of efforts have to be spent to trace people who dump the rubbish. Besides, no tourists would like to visit a city, where its special feature is rubbish bags lining up on the street. It is clear that food waste charges cannot do more good than harm to the environment.
Meanwhile, the administration of the scheme can be troublesome. First of all, families need to separate food waste from other waste. In fact, people can also easily keep down the levy by mixing food waste with other non-chargeable waste. This also brings about the question of how the charges should be calculated. It is time-consuming and labour-intensive to do calculation. What’s more, assessment of food waste volume by each building will make people worry that the system is not fair for everyone. All buildings also need extra equipment or dumping areas for this scheme. The high administrative cost simply cannot be ignored.
Some argue that imposing food waste charges is the only way out for solving the problem of inadequate landfills. Yet, there are other alternatives. The government had better develop the recycling industry which makes use of the food waste. For example, the waste can be processed to become pig’s food. Besides household food waste, commercial food waste should be considered too. Restaurants and supermarkets can cooperate with community service organisations to give the surplus food to the needy. Last but not least, education is the most important solution. Cutting down the amount of the food waste from the source is always better than other methods. The government has started the Food Wise Campaign to remind citizens to rethink before consuming food. The campaign is a right step to addressing the food waste problem and should be continued. We Hong Kongers have the responsibilities to protect our environment.
Reducing food waste is a must. But imposing the charges will bring some harmful side effects. In my opinion, the household food waste charge policy is not a wise solution.