Who Should Pay for Handling Non-compliant Waste (NCW)?

During the initial implementation of MSW charging, it may be difficult to accurately estimate the expenditures for handling the NCW without prior local implementation experience. PMCs could work out an appropriate plan with the owners’ corporations (OCs)/owners’ organisations (OOs) for the households to apportion the relevant expenditures. For example, PMCs may consider purchasing designated bags/designated labels in advance to provide to the cleansing workers for handling the relevant waste, and charge the households based on the actual expenditure or in the form of a fixed monthly approximate fee. PMCs should regularly review the fees to ensure that the fees can reflect the law-abidingness of the residents in the premises. PMCs may also consider conducting initial surveys to collect the daily waste and garbage bags usage data in their premises. This would be useful for PMCs to explain the calculation basis of the relevant expenditures to households.

If a PMC outsources waste collection, the EPD reminds that PMCs should not include in their contracts "all-inclusive" provisions requiring service contractors to bear all costs incurred by the implementation of MSW charging. Such kind of contractual arrangement is not consistent with the "polluter-pays" principle and will undermine the effectiveness of MSW charging. Moreover, the cleansing services contractors may tend to offer higher bids for new contracts to balance the currently uncertain risks, which will not be in the interest of PMCs, cleansing services contractors and households.