HK environmental department head: to take multiple measures to cut waste

Hong Kong Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing said on Monday that the government will adopt various measures to reduce waste, including landfill expansion, rebuilding incinerators and increase recycling.

Wong said Hong Kong is currently producing 9000 tons of rubbish every day. Each person creates 2.67 Kg a day. One of his key measures is to rebuild incinerators, which had all born torn down in 2003, to burn down about 3,000 tons of daily wastes.

The government plans to construct a Pilot Composting Centre new outlying Shek Kwu Chau,comprising a collection centre and an incinerator. It is expected to reduce about 3,000 tons of daily wastes.

But Wong stressed that solely by burning down is by no means the best solution. He took the leading countries in waste management, such as South Korea as an example. Korea is recycling 61 percent its garbage, the remaining 40 percent are more or less evenly dealt with by incinerating and land filling.

For the time being, Hong Kong mainly relies on land filling, accounting for 52 percent of the entire waste management processes, while recollecting the remaining 48 percent. Therefore, he said the government is also working on the possibility of assisting recycling industry in the private sector, .in order to ease reliance on landfills.

For example, the currently running Organic Waste Treatment Facilities(OWTF), which aims at recycling organic wastes (mainly food wastes) into useful products such as composts, will run in two phases. It aims tohave a total daily treatment capacity of 400-500 tonnes of organic waste.

It is estimated that for the two phases of OWTF, surplus electricity which is adequate for use by 6,000 households,can be supplied to the power grid per year. This renewable energy production will contribute toreduction of 50,000 tonnes per year of Green House Gas emission via reductionin use of fossil fuel for electricity generation. In addition, each phase of the OWTF would avoid landfilling of about 190 and 280 tonnes of waste every day respectively.

“We are also looking into subsidizing such organizations within the month, through granting lands, financing and so on, said Wong.

Wong added that consultation of the long overdue policy of “pay as you throw, i.e citizens being charged on how much waste they create, will kick off in the coming September.

“This policy acclaimed much applause in Taipei, which is encouraging for Hong Kong to follow suit, said Wong