Since changes in 2018 which saw China ban the importation of many recyclable materials, local plastic ‘recycling’ has evolved somewhat to include a small amount of local processing into secondary raw materials such as plastic flakes or pellets, but still very little of the waste collected in Hong Kong is processed in this way.
The recyclable material collected in Hong Kong was mainly baled and then exported for handling elsewhere, mostly in China. They imported recyclable material from other countries and then exported it, with little or no processing taking place here in HK. 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. 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. 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.
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