Study of the challenges and prospect of municipal solid waste charging scheme in commercial properties in Hong Kong

Abstract

Looking at the bright side of the shopping and retail industry in Hong Kong, it creates a lot of business opportunities, contributes a large portion gross domestic product in the tertiary sector in Hong Kong. Yet, people seldom care about the downside of it that it generates tremendous volume of solid waste. The waste management methods in Hong Kong are far behind worldwide standard as majority of the solid waste are simply be landfilled. Notwithstanding the recycling concepts has been promoted to the citizen of Hong Kong since the 1990s, the recycling rate is low as compared to other Asian cities. Since the landfills are going to be saturated as early as 2019, the government of Hong Kong finally tries to reduce solid waste generation rate by implementing the Municipal Solid Waste Charging Scheme. The Municipal Solid Waste Charging Scheme has yet to be passed in the Legislative Council while the government targets to enforce it by end of 2019. This research was conducted with case studies of shopping centres. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection method were used through surveys to shopper and shop tenants and in-depth interviews with property managers. The research has examined the current waste management method in shopping centres and concluded its deficiency. From the data analysis and discussion, the challenges of advancing waste management in shopping centres was reviewed. Municipal Solid Waste Charging Scheme is not an innovated strategy to tackle waste problem as it has been practiced in many cities in the world and the empirical evidence showed its effectiveness of reducing waste generation and increasing recycling rate. The research discussion concluded that some of the successful factors from the worldwide experience could possibly be applied in Hong Kong to enhance the effectiveness of the Municipal Solid Waste Charging Scheme in waste reduction. Finally, the government, retail industry business owners and shopping centre landlords and property managers were given recommendation on the way forward that enable every stakeholder to collaborate and achieve a “waste-free” city.