Stakeholders’ engagement in sustainable solid waste management

Abstract

Sustainable development ranks higher in the priority of cities’ agenda in recent years. As an advanced metropolitan, Hong Kong is renowned and excel for its well-established legal system, prosperous economy and freedom. Surprisingly, the municipal solid waste handling performance is falling behind many developed cities and countries including Taipei, South Korea, United Kingdom and Japan. Investigating the issues related to the municipal solid waste management in Hong Kong is worthwhile. On many controversial solid waste handling issues, implementing statutory regulations is frequently acquired by Hong Kong SAR Government. However, these regulations are meaningless without active involvements and participations of public stakeholders. Therefore, the perceived effectiveness of the stakeholders’ engagement efforts made by government on sustainable solid waste management is investigated. Besides, knowing why people are wi0lling or not willing to engage and knowing how to engage stakeholders in the society to participate in sustainable solid waste management are critical and also included in this study. Among different groups of stakeholders, household residents form the most significant group, which produce domestic waste that contribute the highest proportion in the municipal solid waste. Besides, property management companies (PMCs) are also weighty as they can be the organisers and facilitators of sustainable solid waste management in residential settings. These two groups of stakeholders are the groups we focus on in this study. From this study, it is revealed that the perceived effectiveness of stakeholders’ engagement performed by the government was low for both household residents and PMCs. The engagement efforts made by government stayed at a preliminary stage, mainly by information dissemination and public consulting. There was no guarantee the voices of stakeholders to be heard and considered and the government was holding the ultimate decision making power. Household residents and PMCs did not believe that they had power to influence the decision making or the performance of sustainable solid waste management. There were no standardized procedures for engagement as well. Consequently, household residents and PMCs were not willing to take pro-active actions in sustainable solid waste management. On the other hand, the role of PMCs in managing and facilitating sustainable solid waste management implementations is found substantial as well. Household residents generally perceived that the PMCs were not engaging them actively on SSWM issue. At the same time, PMCs managers admitted that the engagement effort on sustainable solid waste management with household residents is very little. The factors affecting stakeholders’ engagement in sustainable solid waste management behaviour were also explored in the later chapter of this study. In view of the findings and analysis, recommendations are given in the final chapter on the practical measures to engage stakeholders in residential setting to participate in sustainable solid waste management. To implement sustainable solid waste management effectively in Hong Kong, formulating constructive stakeholders’ engagement strategies by both government towards PMCs and household residents and PMCs towards household residents are both essential.