Assessment

• In view of the waste paper export price has been volatile and driven down drastically in year 2019, the economic incentive solely by the market is not sufficient to drive the frontline recyclers/scavengers to collect waste papers on street, which could affect the small recycling firm to sustain their business and provoke another waste paper crisis.
• The applicant proposed the project to set up an economic incentive scheme to support their operating cost which could in turn stabilize the waste paper prices for frontline recyclers/scavengers, as well as to improve the quality of the collected waste paper.
• The project assisted the mobile recyclers by establishing a five-tier incentives. The participants of the incentive scheme could get a monetary provisional assistance in a half-monthly basis based on their scale of recycling operation by benchmarking their half-monthly waste paper collection amount reaching a certain level.
• The participants also needed to pledge that their waste paper collected could meet a certain standard of moisture content to enhance its quality and it would be monitored through cooperating with the exporters.
• The applicant increased manpower, used an e-platform for data collection, procured equipment for checking moisture content and provided monetary incentive to mobile recyclers in the project. More than 100 recyclers benefited through the scheme.