Hong Kong – EPD clarifies on matters relating to sales of designated bags for municipal solid waste charging circulated on Internet

     In response to the allegation circulated on the Internet regarding the sales of products claiming to be pre-paid designated bags (DBs) for municipal solid waste (MSW) charging, the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) made the following clarification yesterday (January 5):

     The EPD noticed that several pictures of a green garbage bag, titled “Designated Bag for Hong Kong Municipal Solid Waste Charging Next Year”, have recently been forwarded to an online discussion forum, and that same type of garbage bag is available for sale online. The garbage bag concerned is imprinted with characters including “Designated Bag” and “For Trial Only”. The department suspected that garbage bag is a dummy DB which was provided by the EPD to residents for trial use under its trial projects, which had commenced since 2018, for cultivating their new waste disposal practices, and the associated trial projects were completed at the end of 2023. The EPD emphasises that people are not allowed to use dummy DBs for depositing waste after the commencement of MSW charging, otherwise they may contravene legislations relating to MSW charging. The EPD has also notified the Hong Kong Customs of the the findings for their follow-up investigations. 

     As provided in the Waste Disposal Ordinance (Cap. 354), DBs and designated labels (DLs) shall only be sold by persons authorised by the Director of Environmental Protection (DEP) on prescribed terms to prevent counterfeit DBs and DLs from being supplied in the market. Any unauthorised person who sells DBs and DLs is liable on conviction to a maximum fine of $200,000. Over 3 000 sales points and online platforms authorised by the DEP will start selling DBs and DLs from next month onwards, with details to be announced later this month.

     The EPD has completed registering trade marks for the designs of DBs of different capacities and DLs to guard against possible counterfeit products and eradicate copyright infringement activities. Under the Trade Descriptions Ordinance, any person who sells or possesses, for the purpose of selling, counterfeit goods commits an offence, and is liable on conviction to a maximum fine of $500,000 and to imprisonment for five years. Members of the public may report such activities to the Customs’ 24-hour hotline 2545 6182 or its dedicated crime reporting email account (crimereport@customs.gov.hk).