The Hong Kong government inches towards admitting that the ‘green bags’ waste disposal plan is pretty much dead…
The Hong Kong government said its waste-charging scheme had become a “public disturbance” over the course of a two-month trial run.
In a paper submitted to the Legislative Council on Friday, the Environment and Ecology Bureau and the Environmental Protection Department said residents found the waste tax to be a hassle and the designated rubbish bags to be overpriced.
Frontline cleaners reported an “significant increase” in their workloads and raised concerns that they may inadvertently break the law by handling rubbish incorrectly. Some even said they would quit their jobs upon the official launch, the government said.
The Standard quotes sources as saying the scheme is ‘postponed indefinitely’.
The waste-charging plan has been years in the making and in principle makes good sense. But the people responsible for policymaking and implementation have little connection with the lives most people lead. With spacious housing, cars (even chauffeurs), house servants, maybe subsidized overseas schooling for kids, priority access to public hospitals, etc, they probably never take a bag of trash out.
With elected and critical lawmakers now debarred, jailed or in exile, the legislature is mostly composed of appointed loyalists who repeat official talking points and vote for whatever the executive branch wants. Opposition media have been closed. There was no-one to point out possible public opposition.
Transport bureaucrats similarly show little interest in conditions for pedestrians. An illustrated thread from Transit Jam on the last few days’ carnage on one road in Kowloon…
[May 23] Last night, Mong Kok, Alphard driver loses control, shovels the sidewalk, six injured including two passersby. 628 Nathan Road. Driver said a taxi cut him up and he had no choice. The instigating taxi disappeared into the night…
[May 24] It happened again last night … a few hundred metres further south, 380 Nathan Road. BMW driver lost control, smashed onto the pavement at around 3:15am and fled…
[May 25] And AGAIN, this time onto a pedestrian island at the southern end of Nathan Road (Salisbury Road junction/Peninsula). 6:40pm tonight, six injured and taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, including one aux policewoman on pedestrian marshall duty.
This island is usually VERY packed with tourists. The crash happened at 6:40pm, just before the drone show.
DRIVERS PLEASE STOP SMASHING INTO PEOPLE ON THE PAVEMENT!
[May 26] This is turning into the thread of death and destruction on Nathan Road.
4am. 27-year-old taxi driver smashed into a motorbike at Nathan/Argyle. 22-year-old rider and his 24-year-old female passenger both killed. Taxi driver and his passenger injured, a 67-yr-old pedestrian also badly injured by collision debris.
[May 26] HOLY FUCK YET ANOTHER NATHAN PED CRASH, AT THE EXACT SAME JUNCTION AS THIS MORNING’S DEADLY CRASH: A pedestrian crushed against a railing by KMB bus. Trapped for 20 minutes, taken to hospital conscious but struggling.
As per HK01 the exact same thing happened here in 2017, a mainland woman lost her foot in that crash: the driver got a suspended sentence.
It’s Sunday today, since Thursday the Nathan Road pedestrian injury tally stands at 12, out of 15 injured (and 2 killed) in total.
Some other things…
HKFP reports the resignation of the local weightlifters’ association after she was criticized for saying ‘countries’ without adding ‘territories’. Who would be involved in sports admin when the government blasts your casual phrasing as…
…“absolutely unacceptable” and “grossly inconsistent with the fact that delegations from Hong Kong, China and Chinese Taipei participated as regional teams.”
An HKFP op-ed asks why suspects in Hong Kong are waiting years for trial…
Trials relating to the storming of the Legislative Council and disorders at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, both in 2019, came up last year. A man charged with posting subversive Facebook messages in 2020 was tried only last week. The famous 47 democrats, after first hearings at which most of them were refused bail in March 2021, are still awaiting a verdict, as are the former editors of Stand News – a case which began with their arrests, also in 2021.
Probably the current record-holder is Benny Tai, who was charged in July 2021 with election offences committed in 2016. But the competition is lively. The latest prosecution arising from the Yuen Long incident was brought only this year. Of the more than 10,000 people arrested at one time or another in 2019, there are still around 8,000 who have not yet appeared in court.
In the SCMP, Regina Ip paints a romantic picture of Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices overseas, especially the London one’s noble role during colonial times facilitating textiles exports and helping Hongkongers in a quasi-consular capacity. She says that ‘strengthening security protection and monitoring hostile activities targeting Hong Kong’ is justified as the office has been the focus of protests, but largely glosses over the UK’s recent arrests of an office manager and two people apparently hired by him. In an accompanying Tweet, she laments…
It would be a shame to write off [the HKETO’s] contributions, and overplay the “spying” allegations. Collecting “soft intelligence” is a standard part of consulates’ “country” reports, right ?
Maybe, but it looks like the ETO was involved in some sort of surveillance/enforcement operation – completely outside its supposed responsibilities.
Will the Hemlock readers and cognoscenti please help me understand WTF is up with that stretch of Nathan Road?
Maybe if all the pedestrians on Nathan Road wore fluorescent yellow vests and plastic helmets, the pavements would become safe again?
To be fair, what are all these pesky pedestrians doing on the sidewalks of Nathan Rd in the first place? It’s bloody unfair for drivers and good argument for the government to widen roads so traffic can flow more smoothly!
Oh how much more tolerable HK would be if 2/3 of the population would just fuck off and leave the place to heavyweights, elites and those that service them directly.
If the HKSAR govt wished to improve its standing with the general public (admittedly, that’s a big if), they could start by following these simple precepts:
1. Leave us alone as much as possible
2. Stop making our lives worse.
You’re welcome.
Did reducing the size of the openings on the orange rubbish bins reduce the amount of rubbish put into the bins? That was done years ago. The government must know by now.
Regina: “It would be a shame to write off [the HKETO’s] contributions, and overplay the “spying” allegations. Collecting “soft intelligence” is a standard part of consulates’ “country” reports, right ?”
Wiping the cornflakes off the screen – HK IS NOT A COUNTRY. Foreign affairs is limited to:
https://www.cmab.gov.hk/en/issues/external.htm. No mention of espionage and no doubt the central authorities would prefer that such activities be carried out by its experts in the field not meddling amateurs.
While the lady chairing the weighlifters, known for brawn not brain, should not be expected to be versed in complicated word use re the status of locations, the convenor of ExCO should certainly know better than infer that HK can meddle with delicate international protocols.
Will Regina be pilloried for her inferences?
Not a surprise the rubbish policy was binned
HK Gov has atrophied to a point where it is only capabale of debating one single policy dimension – fireworks, or MORE fireworks?
A lot of public trash bins were removed from Discovery Bay in recent months (seems like about 75%) presumably in anticipation of cheapskates like me filling them with household trash. I hope they put them back now that it’s all gone horribly wrong.
To be fair, not every accident to a pedestrian is the driver’s fault. I was once driving down a street in Mongkok when some idiot jumped down off a parked truck into the road just a few feet in front of me. Only my instinctive swerve into the next lane saved his life, but if there had been another vehicle there, I would certainly have hit it. No doubt the brainless Darwin Award candidate would then have melted away into the crowd, leaving me to face the repair bill.
And then there’s this: https://ourprivatebeach.blogspot.com/2020/10/look-back-in-danger.html.
@Young Winston
I always think of DB as a concentration camp where the ‘inmates’ are volunteers. Critically, it’s a win-win; they don’t have to put up with us, and we don’t have to put up with them.
Regina: “It would be a shame to write off [the HKETO’s] contributions, and overplay the “spying” allegations. Collecting “soft intelligence” is a standard part of consulates’ “country” reports, right ?”
And yet, when others do it in Hong Kong, her ilk demands that it be shut down….
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1195489.shtml
US consulate in HK loathed as ‘spy center’
SNIP:
In latest online polls launched by Chinese media outlets, 66 percent of respondents believe the US consulate in Hong Kong and Macao “is most likely to be closed.” One poll done by the Global Times on Twitter had more than 11,000 responses, and another one by guancha.cn on Sina Weibo received 46,000 votes.
Yin Hongbiao, an expert on Hong Kong affairs at Peking University, told the Global Times on Thursday that Hong Kong is one of the world’s major centers for espionage activities, especially for the UK and the US. International relations experts said the US consulate in Hong Kong has long been serving more as an anti-China camp for the US than a diplomatic facility.
“…….residents found the waste tax to be a hassle and the designated rubbish bags to be overpriced…..”
No Siht!
I thought that was the very purpose so that you generate less: Less rubbish – less hassle- less cost.
Capiche?
@Young Winston,
I thought Discobay is where all the Greenies live?
Ohh it was NIMBYs.
Got it!
“I thought that was the very purpose so that you generate less: Less rubbish – less hassle- less cost.”
So less rubbish means reduced consumption, fewer goods being sold, retail revenues declining, billionaire family profits challenged.
On second thoughts…
“International relations experts said the US consulate in Hong Kong has long been serving more as an anti-China camp for the US than a diplomatic facility.”
“International relations experts said” eh? Oh, I’d say the CCP does a damned perfect job of creating anti-China camps and sentiment just fine on their own. Witness the thuggish behaviour of the CCP against Taiwan’s glorious free and fair election and ongoing bullying the Philippines, for starters.
This article on CCP bullying is particularly relevant: https://apnews.com/article/china-trade-economic-firm-state-department-42655e067386a20b22f1317ce298f334
@Joe;
you obviously do not understand what the goals of recycling are.
Pity.
The government could do worse than make a habit of choosing the practical desires of normal people over the impractical virtue signalling of the enviro-fascists.
@Reactor #4
After 20+ years living in the city, it felt good to move somewhere clean, spacious and friendly 15 years ago. Still does.
“@Joe;
you obviously do not understand what the goals of recycling are.
Pity.”
Neither did the government as they tried to launch this waste taxing scheme without placing recycling facilities in convenient locations. They half assed the whole thing UNLIKE Taiwan and other countries.
Also there is the issue that commercial interests create a ton of plastic waste with their packaging. How about going after them first instead of regular people who always seem to be the target instead of the vested interests.
Create a few more landfills. Problem solved.