Nasty Backdoor of Government Policies

Imagine you are in a tour about knowing more of Hong Kong culture, and your first stop is a random backstreet where you could see a pile of rubbish accumulated by constructions, households and restaurants etc. Just when you are wondering why, your tour guide suddenly told you that, to have an in dept understanding of Hong Kong, this is the best place to start!

Are you confused by the whole story? Well, you are not alone. I bet all of you, who are reading this blog post, are. Thousands of question mark coming out from your head like volcano eruption and with that meme face, of course. As twisted as the plot could be, I was in the same place as anyone of you are currently.

Last Sunday, I joined a Blue House tour provided the staffs over there. (In case, if you don't know what is Blue House, it is one of the few remaining old Chinese buildings with balcony and listed as Grade 1 historic building in HK. To have a better understanding, Google it!) And my first stop, all of you can guess it, a random backstreet full of trash. I was shook and thought he was joking. However, after hearing his introduction, I couldn't agree anymore that this is indeed the best place to begin with if a person is interested in having a deep grasp the authentic side of Hong Kong.

In first glimpse, Hong Kong is a peaceful place safeguarded with comprehensive package of law; A prosperous society full of rich people carrying luxury goods; A developed city where everyone are civilized. Such illusion being displayed in famous tourist urban area, e.g Central, Wan Chai, Causeway Bay etc., no tourists, not to mention even the locals, would ever thought of this beautiful city is, in fact, trying to hide one of the biggest flaws in itself ----- trash.

The dilemma faced by Hong Kong is a big painful headache : the rubbish problem aggravating, meanwhile landfills diminishing. Hong Kong government, thus, implemented "the Construction Waste Disposal Charging Scheme", aiming to reduce down the burden of garbage from construction companies. However, does the scheme actually help?

We shall always keep in mind that, under the circumstance of free market, whenever the government interfere the market, dead-weight loss will be resulted. In economics, such interfere is considered as "price floor", meaning that the price are set above the equilibrium price.

Potential gain could have been captured but failed. Those rubbish being seen in the backstreet are the result of deadweightloss. Backstreets had eventually became the backdoor for those construction company who are escaping to pay the charge, in order to lower down their production cost. A selfish behaviour to maximise their own gains.

Waste is inevitable, but the amount is controllable. As long as citizens' values remain unchanged and living in a materialistic life, regardless of the number of charging scheme, the situation will be the same. If the scheme could bring this much to our society, let alone the going-to establish rubbish charging scheme. Could you imagine the scene,

maybe, adverse effect would even be created: citizens throwing rubbish at the dead corners of our society thinking that no one will discover. As time past by, Hong Kong will become a nice packaged city but where the inner side have countless of rubbish are being accumulated.

As cliche as I may sound, Keeping Hong Kong, our home, clean is everyone responsibility. There are no "Me", nor "You" in this matter. With unilateral efforts is certainly not adequate in solving this monumental issue. To hurdle the hurdle, we all must unite and educate our next generation in terms of how to show our love to our home.

If it's to be, it's up to us.