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The Environmental Levy Scheme for Plastic Shopping Bags has yielded positive results since its implementation, with many people now taking their own reusable shopping bags.
The community's response to the Environmental Levy Scheme was fairly positive since its implementation in early July, a spokesman of the Environmental Protection Department said today (November 2).
"We thank registered retailers, frontline staff at the retail outlets, green groups and members of the public for their support. We are deeply encouraged by the accomplishments of the scheme," he said.
All registered retailers submitted their quarterly returns on or before the deadline of October 30. The first quarterly returns covered the period between July 7 and September 30.
"Registered retailers distributed 13.46 million plastic shopping bags in the first three months of the scheme with a levy income totalling about $6.7 million. The levy collected is less than estimated, but in line with our policy objective, a lesser levy being collected means more people choosing to use reusable shopping bags which in turn affirms the positive impacts of the scheme," the spokesman said.
The Environmental Levy Scheme is the first mandatory producer responsibility scheme implemented under the Product Eco-responsibility Ordinance. It seeks to offer economic incentive to address the indiscriminate use of plastic shopping bags in Hong Kong. As required under the Environmental Levy Scheme, registered retailers have to submit to the Government quarterly returns setting out the number of plastic shopping bags distributed to customers in the non-exempted areas in all of their registered retail outlets and the amount of levy collected for such bags.
"According to the initial feedback from some green groups and the retail trade, the number of plastic shopping bags distributed to customers by registered retailers has been reduced significantly.
"Some sources have indicated that the reduction is as much as 80% to 90%. We will conduct surveys at the landfills towards the end of this year and in the middle of next year to look into the extent of waste reduction for the purpose of a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of the Levy Scheme and as reference when considering the way forward of the scheme," the spokesman said.
"We will also sustain our publicity and education efforts on BYOB in addressing the indiscriminate use of plastic shopping bags."
Ends/Monday, November 2, 2009
Issued at HKT 19:16
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