Undoubtedly, the people of Hong Kong can do just as well as the residents of Shanghai, Taipei and Seoul in terms of municipal solid waste (MSW) management. We just need to be given a chance to prove ourselves — which is why the Hong Kong authorities must push forward with MSW charging in 2025.

In Taipei, garbage truck stops are sites of collective environmental action. Dumpsters and public bins are rare. They have been replaced by ubiquitous big yellow trucks that greet residents with blaring music. People bring out waste and recyclables when they hear the music. From 2001 to 2020, Taiwan saw a 46 percent increase in MSW recycling rates, partly due to its quantity-based charging program.

Seoul devised its collection and charging program to suit local circumstances, while Shanghai developed a mandatory waste-separation program. After an adjustment period marred by the inevitable minor confusion in all three cities, people adapted, and their respective programs have since become routine practice.

Hong Kong strives to do the same with its MSW charging and voluntary waste separation but is beset by some teething problems. So what is stopping us from separating recyclables and paying for waste?

The MSW charging program has faced numerous roadblocks. It was slated for implementation in April, but in January, the government pushed it back to August because it was concerned the public did not sufficiently understand the program.

In April, a two-month pilot program for waste charging began in 14 locations to assess its effectiveness and see how well people understood the program. The pilot program saw limited adoption rates among residents, as some locations had compliance rates as low as 20 percent. Encouragingly, however, total compliance was observed among the public and institutional sectors.

Residents in pilot locations cited worries about extra cost burdens and inconvenience — concerns that have been a large part of the debate about MSW charging since its proposal. During the pilot program, some businesses also voiced worries that recycling requires extra manpower, and that the weak economy made it an inappropriate time to launch the program.

In late May, the government announced it would continue to improve the program but provided no date for its implementation. In the public’s perception, the program has been shelved indefinitely.

Limited public education is a critical problem but one that can be improved. The authorities can push ahead with a yearlong awareness campaign to better explain the program’s rationale and how it works. It is no small task to get Hong Kong’s community of over 7 million people to change their habits, but as other Asian cities have shown, it is doable.

Another issue is the lack of waste-management infrastructure. A major complaint is that households don’t have anywhere to take their food waste, which forms about a third of Hong Kong’s daily 11,000 metric tons of MSW.

Currently, about 260 tons of food waste are collected daily, which is treated at O.Park1 on Lantau Island or sent to the Drainage Services Department for co-digestion with sewage.

The authorities have started to improve food waste collection, placing new purple food-waste bins in many housing estates and markets. Still, they must do better, especially because O.Park2 has a capacity of 300 tons per day and is set to open soon. Moreover, co-digestion capacity can also be increased.

Experience from overseas shows that approximately half of a city’s food waste can be collected — which, in Hong Kong’s case, would be about 1,500 tons per day. If we fill the capacities for O.Park1 and O.Park2 and the current capacity from co-digestion, Hong Kong will already be treating about 600 tons a day, half of the estimated food waste that can feasibly be collected.

The picture is clear: We must spend the next 12 months working hard on collecting food waste. This will make a dramatic difference to our MSW recycling as we continue to expand waste treatment infrastructure. This can occur alongside public education on separating recyclables into paper, plastic bottles, glass bottles, metal, and textiles.

Hong Kong is very close to being MSW-ready. In fact, professionals working in the waste sector have been getting ready since at least 2020, when authorities prepared legislation for waste charging, which was passed in the following year.

Building management associations have been issuing guidelines and holding forums for property managers. Cleaning and recycling companies have been getting their workforce ready, and major public institutions, such as airports and universities, as well as many markets, malls, and hotels, are also MSW-ready.

Hong Kong authorities have the choice to roll out the MSW program in phases on a nonpunitive trial basis, starting with MSW-ready places, while simultaneously addressing remaining challenges to implementation elsewhere.

Setting a date to roll out implementation — ideally by the end of 2025 — would ensure that action on waste management is taken soon. The program itself can be fine-tuned as it is expanded to all communities. After all, the best way for us to learn this new waste management method is by doing.

The author is an intern at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2024. She is a rising junior at Yale University majoring in environmental studies with a certificate in energy studies.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.