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Hong Kong Community College
Semester One, 2013/14

CCN1005 English for Academic Studies (Business) I
Assignment 1: Academic Essay

Essay Title: Waste Levy
Negative influences of the waste levy

Student Name: Wong Ho Yim (A05)
Student No. : 13031388A
Date of Submission: 8 Nov 2013

Negative influences of the waste levy
As the increasing disposal in Hong Kong, and the existing landfills will be overloaded in 2020 (by the EPD). There are few places suitable for building up another landfills, so the waste problems must be solved at the time. And recently, the government are planning to implement the waste levy to public, used for decreasing the amount of disposal in Hong Kong, but the waste levy was not perfect. In fact, it brings negative impacts to the SMEs and domestic economy, and the effects on this waste levy are lack of efficiency.

Firstly, this waste levy is going to increase the economic burden to the household families. As this levy is implemented, every families have to pay extra money due to this levy, especially to the poor families, they are the most innocent people. They are already living in an expensive environment cause by the inflation. Are they also have to pay extra tax for the waste levy? Which is very unfair to the poor families pay for the levy. Besides the SMEs are also affected by waste levy, especially those in the catering industry. Some of the investigations, found out that about one-third of the disposal is the food waste, so the catering industry has to bear the brunt of waste levy. To those small restaurants, waste levy is increased their economic burden, and they will probably turn this tax burden to a third party, so they may increase the price of their food. As a result, the citizens and customers will take up the additional cost of levy for the restaurants, so it doesn’t help the Hong Kong economic as well.

Beside the problems to the SMEs and domestic families, the efficiency of waste levy



References: Putting A Price On Domestic Waste Disposal? (2013). Hong Kong Law Blog. Retrieved Sep, 2013, from http://hklawblog.com/2013/10/02/putting-a-price-on-domestic-waste-disposal/ Bob, C. (2013, Sep 12).Waste-charge scheme will not work. South China Morning Post. Retrieved September 12, 2013, from http://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/1308584 /waste-charge-scheme-will-not-work Cheung, C. F. (2013, September 26). The great green debate: Charge entire buildings a waste levy, or individuals? South China Morning Post. Retrieved September 29, 2013, from http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1317759/great-green-debate-charge-entire-buildings-waste-levy-or-individuals Chen, A. (2013, September 30). Household-based waste levy is preferred option: poll. South China Morning Post. Retrieved September 30, 2013, from http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1320776/household-based-waste-levy-preferred-option-poll GovHK. (2013, March). Waste Reduction & Recycling. Retrieved September 29, 2013, from http://www.gov.hk/en/residents/environment/waste/wasteredrecyc.htm

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