The Environmental Protection Department has announced that a partial failure of the server for the food waste smart recycling platform was discovered at 12.30pm today, causing connection issues that temporarily disrupted the operation of some food waste smart recycling bins (FWSRBs) in public rental housing (PRH) estates and private housing premises.

The department immediately instructed the contractor to switch the platform to a backup server and the service was resumed as normal at 2.22pm.

The department also contacted the relevant management offices of PRH estates and private housing premises with instructions to place traditional food waste collection bins next to the FWSRBs during the server failure.

In response to the incident, the department has requested that the contractors submit an incident report within seven days and ensure that similar problems do not recur. It also gave thanks to residents for participating in food waste recycling and apologised to all affected users.