The Environmental Protection Department said today that the smart recycling bins installed under the food waste collection trial scheme will not generate a strong odour when the lids are open as claimed by a company.

Responding to media enquiries, the department explained that the smart recycling bins used in the trial scheme are equipped with odour abatement devices and adopt an impermeable and enclosed design.

Additionally, the odour will be dispersed in the air as the bins are usually installed in outdoor and fully ventilated places. The department stressed that it is inappropriate for the company concerned to use indoor air quality objectives for comparison with the smart recycling bins placed outdoors, and claim that air pollutants generated from the bins exceed the prescribed threshold by 10 times.

The department also pointed out that residents responded positively to the design and operation of smart food waste recycling bins. They actively participated in smart food waste recycling with an increasing quantity of food waste collected

Currently, six public rental housing estates including Shek Pai Wan Estate in Aberdeen, Choi Tak Estate in Ngau Tau Kok, Sheung Tak Estate in Tseung Kwan O, Lin Tsui Estate in Chai Wan, Kwun Lung Lau in Kennedy Town and Tin Heng Estate in Tin Shui Wai have participated in the trial scheme.

Recently, a local technology enterprise claimed to the department that it could adopt other methods to improve the performance of smart food waste recycling bins by further reducing the food waste odour.

The department then lent one of the smart food waste recycling bins located outdoors in Sheung Tak Estate to the enterprise for installing its device to abate odour using a physical method for a short-term academic research.

The move was done with the goal of providing support to the local enterprise for environmental research and development.

The department emphasised that it has not commissioned any enterprise to provide other odour abatement devices installed in the smart food waste recycling bins.

Understanding that the relevant academic research had just been finished in mid-April and it only lasted for a week or so, it may need more data support to come up with a conclusion.

The department added that it has not received any research details, analytics results or reports provided by the enterprise so far, and there is no information showing that the device concerned can further reduce odour from food waste.