Recycling in Hong Kong
Recycling is the third of the well-known ‘3 Rs’, following Reduce and Reuse in the hierarchy of solutions to reduce waste. It is not the answer to the world’s plastic pollution problem, but it is an important action to take as it will help minimise the amount of virgin plastic needed to make new items which is important given the harm that the extraction of oil and production of plastic causes. It is also beneficial as fossil fuels are a non-renewable natural resource.
Recycling is the “reprocessing, by means of a manufacturing process, of a used … material into a product, a component incorporated into a product, or a secondary (recycled) raw material; excluding energy recovery and the use of the product as a fuel.”
What and Where to Recycle in Hong Kong ?
As per the Hong Kong Waste Reduction website, you can recycle the following in the street bins throughout Hong Kong:
- Paper – newspaper, books and magazines; office paper; corrugate cardboard (carton boxes)
- Plastic Bottles – beverage bottles and personal care bottles (PET #1 and HDPE #2 plastic)
- Metal – iron/aluminium cans, milk powder cans, cookware, food containers, other metals
- Glass – bottles and jars; no light bulbs, cookware, windows, etc.
Other Plastics – bags, packaging, CDs/DVDs, disposable tableware, etc. (not collected in the street bins)
It is important that all items are put into recycling bins clean.
Private residential buildings, estates, office buildings, shopping malls, etc. also facilitate recycling of paper, metal, plastic and sometimes glass and liquid cartons (drink boxes) with separation bins managed by their own contracted waste management companies. Check with your building management to find out what they accept for recycling, particularly the plastic. Some buildings only collect plastic bottles, like the street bins, while others will collect more types of plastic, usually indicated by a label saying Other Plastics.
Don't Wish Cycle
We have to move away from the idea of ‘wish recycling’ – putting something in the recycling bin hoping that it will get recycled. Know what can and cannot be recycled in your collection bins, and follow those instructions. Even though something may be theoretically recyclable, if it is not wanted in your recycling stream, it won’t get recycled no matter how hard you wish for it!
The Best Ways to Recycle in Hong Kong
The EPD has created a recycling network throughout HK in the form of Recycling Stations, Recycling Stores and Recycling Spots. This network will accept: paper, metal, plastic, glass bottles/jars, liquid cartons, regulated electrical equipment, small electrical appliances, fluorescent lamps and tubes, and rechargeable batteries. The recyclables will be sorted and delivered to downstream recyclers for proper handling and the public can earn Green$ for redemption of daily necessities and groceries by recycling. Find out more here.
There are also collectors who will come to your home or office to pick up your recyclables and make sure that they are passed on to the right place where it will have the best chance of getting recycled. Here are some examples: V Cycle, Love Recycling Plus, The Loops, Sou Sou Recycling, HK Recycles.
If a company would like to quantify their waste handling for reporting purposes, working with a company such as those above is important.
Community Recycling Day in Discovery Bay
A win for the Discovery Bay community – what started off as a monthly collection of recyclables (polyfoam, beverage cartons, coffee cups and lids, and contact lens packaging) jointly organised by Plastic Free Seas and DB Green volunteers, has now been taken over the Green@Community Station in Tung Chung. A great two year effort by many volunteers to establish this long term managed recycling!
To find out what recyclables are collected and when the next event is CLICK HERE
Types of Plastic
Plastic is often identified with a number inside a triangle or a ‘chasing arrow’ molded into the bottom of the packaging on a label. This is the plastic resin code, indicating the type of plastic that it is. People often mistake this as indicating that something is recyclable.
Although many plastics are potentially recyclable, there must be a demand for that recycled plastic, and there needs to be enough quantity to make it cost effective to process. It must also be a mono-material – one type of plastic – and clean.
Due to the low price of oil, it can be cheaper to make new products with virgin plastic rather than recycled plastic. Therefore, the demand, especially for many lower value plastics, has dropped.
Challenges With Recycling
When China instituted Operation Green Fence in 2013, and particularly when they followed it with the China National Sword policy in 2018, the challenges of recycling became evident around the world. Half of the world’s plastic recycling had been sent to China, and Hong Kong also relied primarily on China to handle its recycling of not only plastic and other recyclable materials.
Historically in Hong Kong, the bulk of the ‘recycling’ done by companies didn’t have much to do with the collection of recyclables in HK. They imported recyclable material from other countries and then exported it, with little or no processing taking place here in HK. The recyclable material collected within Hong Kong was mainly baled and then exported for handling elsewhere, mostly in China.
Since changes in 2018 which saw China ban the importation of many recyclable materials, local plastic ‘recycling’ has evolved to include local processing into secondary raw materials such as plastic flakes or pellets, but it is unclear how much of the waste collected in Hong Kong is processed in this way. Some continues to be exported to other countries where we have no oversight over what happens to it.
Operation Green Fence
In February 2013, China’s Operation Green Fence was implemented. China launched greater inspections of incoming loads of scrap material in an effort aimed at curtailing the amount of contaminated recyclables and waste that was being imported. The Green Fence policy was in fact an effort to enforce import regulations passed in 2006 and 2010.
China National Sword
This is China’s latest and strictest regulation on imports of solid wastes as raw materials. China’s National Sword policy, enacted in January 2018, banned the import of most plastics and other materials headed for China’s recycling processors, which had handled nearly half of the world’s recyclable waste for the past quarter century. The policy banned various types of plastic, paper and other solid waste materials, and set strict contamination limits on what they do accept.
Plastic Recycling Industry in Hong Kong
Many of the facilities in Hong Kong are small and rely mainly on manual sorting along conveyer belts. Hong Kong does not have a material recovery facility (MRF), which is often used by developed countries to handle mixed recyclable waste. Even the high tech plastic recycling systems in HK handle only plastic, not mixed waste, and some rely on receiving only specific types of plastic waste, such as New Life Plastics which handles only plastic beverage bottles. Some facilities are set up to sort out the types of plastic they want to handle from collected mixed plastic.
Picture: A plastic collection and sorting facility in Yuen Long, NT (picture and videos – 2016)
Only the desired plastics are removed from the sorting conveyor belt. The rest may end up in Hong Kong’s landfills.
Bagged plastic won’t be emptied and separated due to health and safety reasons. Put recyclables into recycling bins loose.
Recyclables are often contaminated with hazardous materials, such as dirty diapers.
Making Plastic Pellets Hong Kong
This is the ‘noodle to rice’ machine which makes recycled plastic pellets out of clear LDPE plastic film. The clear film is chopped into chunks in the guillotine before it is fed onto the conveyor belt. It enters the the heating chamber where it is melted and pushed out the other end in spaghetti-like noodles. The continuous strings of plastic are fed through a water bath for cooling and setting before they enter the final phase of being chopped into tiny plastic ‘rice-like’ pellets. The collected plastic pellets are then pumped into a large transport sack, ready to sell.
This plastic film was imported as waste, not waste collected locally in HK. (March 30, 2018)
Mil Mill, the only paper processing facility handling multi-layer paper-based containers such as liquid cartons (often referred to as Tetra-Paks) and coffee cups, opened in 2019. Mil Mill handles other types of paper, but due to the numerous layers of material in liquid cartons (paper, plastic and aluminium), the pulping process takes longer so paper recyclers do not handle this material with other paper products.
The facility can process up to 10 tonnes of liquid cartons per shift and if they had the volume, they could run three shifts per day. The government reported that in 2023, 80 tonnes of liquid cartons were sent to landfill every day. Even at full capacity, Mil Mill would not be able to handle all of the liquid cartons used in HK. Pre-Covid-19, only about 2 tonnes per day were collected and it is unlikely that this number has increased. The processing to separate the paper from the non-fibre portions (plastic and aluminium) is not difficult – it’s the collection that is the challenging part. Mil Mill requires that cartons must be washed and dried, with the cap and spout removed. Adding to the collection challenges, you can’t place these items in a paper recycling bin. There are specially designed bins located in public and private areas for liquid cartons, and they are collected by the Green@Community network. Find the collection point nearest you on this map. You can also send your clean material directly to the facility in Yuen Long.
Mil Mill also accepts single-use fibre food and beverage containers such as paper coffee cups.
How to Prepare Your Liquid Cartons
Don’t forget to remove the cap and spout!
Mil Mill offers tours of their facility to schools and groups. Contact [email protected] for more information, or visit the website below.
(Click on the above graphic to download)