Let us go green
25 February 2018
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government is committed to promoting the “Use less, Waste less” culture. Multi-pronged measures have been taken to spearhead waste reduction at source and clean recycling at different levels of the community. As early as 2012, internal guidelines were issued in a circular entitled “Green Practices and Waste Avoidance” to require government departments to use glasses or other reusable containers instead of plastic bottled water or one-off containers when serving drinking water at events and meetings.
To further reduce waste at source, the Government has decided that a new ban on the sale of plastic bottled water through automatic vending machines at government venues should be applicable to contracts, lease/tenancy agreements and permissions involving such vending machines for which tenders were invited or permissions were granted on or after 20 February this year.
There are currently about 1 500 automatic vending machines at government venues. Over 40% of them (about 620 machines) will stop selling bottled water from 20 February 2018. The remaining machines will follow suit progressively upon renewal of contracts, lease/tenancy agreements and permissions.
Most of the vending machines selling plastic bottled water are located in sports and recreational facilities, but that should not be a cause for concern to venue users. There are more than 10 000 water dispensers at government venues, of which about 2 700 are primarily for public use. They are mostly installed in active recreational facilities managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, such as sports centres, sports grounds and swimming pools to provide drinking water for the public. Additional or replacement water dispensers will be incorporated in new facility projects and large-scale renovation of existing facilities. I encourage people to make a habit of bringing their own reusable bottles. Different sectors and businesses in the community should also join hands to promote waste reduction at source.
Reducing consumption and waste is crucial to our low-carbon transformation. Environmental protection is not a mere slogan. It is a call for us to walk the talk. The Government is rolling out new publicity to promote the message of “Dump less, Save more, Recycle right”, which is themed on recovery of three types of paper and priority recovery of plastic bottles. By giving tips on source separation and clean recycling of waste paper and plastic to the general public, the campaign aims to improve the quality and quantity of recyclables generated by the domestic sector as part of the community-wide movement to reduce waste on all fronts. To have a liveable city for ourselves and our future generations, it is down to us to do our part and more. Let us start a new year with good new habits to support green living.
