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Government discourages use of plastic wrappers for mailing
Following is a question by Dr the Hon Samuel Wong Ping-wai and a written reply by the Secretary for Economic Services, Mr Stephen Ip, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
It is learnt that a substantial amount of postal articles are wrapped in plastic envelopes or bags, thus presenting considerable sorting and stamping problems to the Post Office which requires extra manpower and time to handle such articles. The use of plastic materials for such a purpose also causes environmental problems. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council whether it will consider prohibiting people from posting their mail in plastic envelopes or bags?
Reply:
Mr President,
Use of plastic wrappers is common for mailing heavy weight printed paper items (exceeding 50g) and less common for letter size mail items. Processing letter size mail items packed in plastic envelopes poses operational problems for the Post Office: such mail cannot be processed by the mechanised letter sorting system and have to be manually sorted. Heavy weight mail, whether packed in plastic wrappers or not, have to be sorted manually. Mail packed in plastic wrappers must be posted in bulk and postage is prepaid by means of the Permit Mailing System or postage franking impressions. As such, the datestamping problem does not arise.
The Universal Postal Union, an international postal organisation, permits the use of plastic wrappers for mailing. We understand that no postal administrations disallow the use of plastic wrappers in the post. The Hong Kong Post Office, as part of the international postal network, has no plans to prohibit posting of mail in plastic wrappers.
It is the established policy of the Post Office to discourage the use of plastic wrappers in the post. Since June 1995, printed papers of less than 50g mailed in plastic wrappers have been charged at rates higher than the normal postage payable (ranging from 8% to 16%). The Post Office will continue to encourage their customers to use more environmentally friendly packaging.
End