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Progress on arrangement for beverage carton treatment
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     On the progress on the arrangement for beverage carton recycling, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) today (February 14) said the following:
 
     "In response to public aspiration for beverage carton recycling, the EPD has been exploring and discussing with the trade in the past few months the different methods, cost-effectiveness and technical requirements for treating beverage cartons, seeking more outlets for them.
 
     "The EPD is planning to invite open tenders for a service contract for processing and recycling beverage cartons in the first quarter of this year to engage a contractor to handle all the beverage cartons collected at the GREEN@COMMUNITY facilities starting from July 1, 2023. The EPD will be responsible for transferring the beverage cartons to the contractor's factory and the contractor will only be responsible for processing and recycling them.
 
     "Beverage cartons are generally composed of three raw materials, namely lignocellulose (70 per cent), plastics (25 per cent) and aluminium (5 per cent). In view of its raw material compositions, different methods can be used for beverage carton recycling. To enable more diversified and cost-effective ways to recycle beverage cartons, the service contract concerned will not have any restrictions on specific technologies as long as they are environmentally sound.
 
     "The Environment and Ecology Bureau announced earlier that beverage cartons and plastic beverage containers would be regulated under a Producer Responsibility Scheme to be implemented, which would request beverage suppliers to take up the environmental responsibilities of collecting and recycling these two types of beverage packing in the future. To this end, the department plans to introduce a bill into the Legislative Council this year. A large-scale modern pulping facility to be built in EcoPark, Tuen Mun, is expected to commence operation in 2025, which should then be able to process locally collected beverage cartons.
 
     "We believe that launching the aforesaid service contract will help maintain the current positive momentum of the public in recycling beverage cartons as well as the completeness and stability of the recycling chain, in preparation for the implementation of the Producer Responsibility Scheme in the future."
 
Ends/Tuesday, February 14, 2023
Issued at HKT 16:30
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