Mission

To safeguard the health and welfare of the community from adverse environmental effects associated with the handling and disposal of wastes by providing waste management facilities and by enforcing the controls in the Waste Disposal Ordinance.
The three strategic landfills will be full in 5 to 12 years' time
NENT Landfill at Ta Kwu Ling


Hong Kong's landfills are filling up faster than expected. This may come as a surprise to residents who have seen recycling programmes mushroom over the past few years. But the harsh fact is that we are producing much more waste now than we did 15 years ago, when the landfills were being planned. The recycling or re-use of waste will not cut wasteloads enough to prolong the life of the landfills beyond the next decade or so.

Ten years may seem a long way off, but it takes that long to plan and build new waste management facilities. There is little room for hesitation. The community must act with urgency if it wants facilities in place before the existing landfills are too full to take our rubbish.

WENT Landfill at Nim Wan

SENT Landfill at Tseung Kwan O

Wet/Dry Sorting Trial

A new type of waste recovery involves separating wet and dry waste. The government will evaluate its effectiveness in a pilot programme starting in 2003. The residents of selected housing estates will be given separate wet and dry waste collection bags. The "wet" bags will be used for garbage and food waste to be disposed of at landfills. The "dry" bags will be used for uncontaminated dry materials with recycling potential, such as packaging, which will be collected for sorting and recycling. This type of waste separation is expected to be more convenient for the public and could help to increase the recovery rate if it is successful.

Plastic Bags

The government provides facilities for collecting waste plastic bottles, but these are not the only plastic products that can be recycled. Plastic bags can also be turned into other products, such as plastic boxes, stationery, clothes, materials for park benches and fenders, and packaging materials.
Everyone must help to recycle and reduce waste
A plastic bag recovery campaign was launched at eight public and private housing estates in 2002. The aim is to collect clean and dry plastic bags, as these are best for recycling. Wellcome supermarket has placed collection bins in 24 stores. The scheme will be further extended to cover more housing estates in 2003 to facilitate plastic bag recovery by the residents.

Mobile Phones

Hong Kong has over 5 million mobile phone users, whose batteries have ended up in landfills. But the batteries have useful materials such as cobalt, nickel and iron. To encourage their recovery, a programme was launched in April 2002 involving mobile phone and battery manufacturers as well as network service providers. It is the first time an industry has participated in a voluntary product responsibility programme in Hong Kong.
The wide use of mobile phones generates a lot of battery waste
Under the scheme, mobile phone batteries can be dropped off at about 90 collection points around the city. They will be shipped overseas for recycling. The pilot programme will last 12 months and the public have already started to use the service. The industry will monitor the results to decide on a long-term arrangement. The EPD, meanwhile, will use the experience to plan for recovery and recycling programmes for other battery waste. The department also is promoting the wider use of rechargeable batteries.

Landfill Charges

Landfill use has always been free of charge in Hong Kong, but this has led to the indiscriminate dumping of waste. The government wants to encourage more recovery and recycling to reduce the pressure on landfills. One way of doing this is to provide an economic incentive for reducing waste - a landfill charge.

Such a charge has been discussed for several years and the government has held talks with various parties. The charge would apply initially to construction waste. Large waste producers would open an account and pay the landfill charges directly to the government, depending on the weight of their wasteloads. There have been no objections in principle to the charge, and a regulation is now being drafted. It is hoped to submit the regulation to the Legislative Council in 2003 and to introduce a landfill charge by 2004.


The challenge facing Hong Kong is similar to that in many developed cities. Increasing wealth has brought increasing wastage. Over the past 15 years, municipal wasteloads have increased by about 50 per cent while the population has increased by about 20 per cent. The problem is compounded by large increases in construction waste over the same period. This waste now makes up over 40 per cent of the total going to landfills.
The Waste Reduction Committee publishes a regular newsletter
The government has devoted considerable effort to encouraging people to reduce waste. A Waste Reduction Committee was formed in 1999 to introduce new initiatives. A target was set to recycle 40 per cent of municipal waste by 2007.

Recycling programmes have been set up in housing estates, schools, hospitals, hotels, the airport, public transport facilities and public places and venues. Land has been set aside for use by recyclers. Businesses have been encouraged to initiate waste reduction activities through the Wastewi$e scheme, which honours their efforts. The mobile phone industry has voluntarily agreed to take back used mobile phone batteries for recycling. All of this has been done in four years. By the end of 2002 Hong Kong was recycling 36 per cent of municipal waste.

But this achievement will not be enough to save the existing landfills. Three landfills, which cost a total $6 billion to build, currently take in our waste. They were planned in the late 1980s to last until at least 2020, but are now expected to run out of space in 5 to 12 years' time, depending on the location of the landfill.
Too much construction waste is being dumped at landfills
The growth in municipal waste has been compounded many times over by the huge amounts of construction waste going to landfills. Although 76 per cent of this waste is recovered, mainly for use in reclamation, the supply of these sites is not stable. In 2002, fewer sites were available so landfills were the only option. Construction waste made up nearly 50 per cent of all waste going to landfills during the year, rather than the usual 40 per cent, pushing up the total wasteload. This situation could be repeated in coming years.

The government is trying to encourage more recycling and re-use of construction waste. Government contractors are required to recover recyclable waste and have waste management plans. A landfill charging scheme is also being planned to help encourage more recycling. This scheme has been on the cards for some years, but is now much closer to being realised. The majority of stakeholders fully support the scheme in principle, which will apply only to construction waste initially. The intention is to introduce it by early 2004. Once that happens, construction waste sorting services will be set up at Tseung Kwan O and Tuen Mun. Contractors will be able to reduce their wasteloads - and the landfill charge - by removing inert or recyclable material before the waste is disposed of at landfills.

Unfortunately, the efforts to reduce wasteloads from all of these sources will only bear fruit in the longer term - after the three landfills are filled and, hopefully, replaced with other waste management facilities. Landfills took in over seven million tonnes of waste in 2002, including municipal, construction, and special wastes (sludge and animal carcasses, which comprise less than 10 per cent of the total waste). The continued increase in recycling rates could further reduce the quantity of municipal solid waste.

Scrap Tyres
Waste tyres occupy much space at landfills
About 19 000 tonnes of scrap tyres are produced in Hong Kong each year. Half of the waste is recycled as retread tyres or rubber products such as playground mats. But the rest ends up in landfills. The government requires tyres to be cut in half to save landfill space, but there is still much potential for improving the recycling rate.

Preparations were underway in 2002 for a pilot programme to recycle part of the waste tyres from government vehicles and those collected by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department. These sources generate more than 2 700 tonnes of waste tyres per year. The programme will be tendered out early in 2003 and initially run for six months, after which it will be reviewed. The hope is that by providing a steady, consistent supply of scrap tyres to the local recycling industry, wasteloads will be reduced.


Ideas on new waste management technology were sought in an Expression of Interest exercise in 2002
Recycling and waste recovery alone cannot sufficiently reduce waste, though. We also need to apply suitable technologies to further reduce the volume of waste disposed of at landfills. In April 2002 the government invited local and international organisations to submit Expressions of Interest on technologies for processing and disposing of municipal solid waste. Fifty-nine submissions were received and were being evaluated. The selected technologies will form the basis of a longer-term integrated waste management strategy option for Hong Kong. Among the proposed technologies were mechanical waste sorting and separation, composting, incineration, converting waste to fuel and combinations of several treatment technologies.

The government wants a high degree of public input on the final options. An advisory group comprised almost entirely of non-officials is now considering the submissions. It has set up five sub-groups to assist in assessing the submissions in the areas of environmental impacts, economic viability, technological feasibility, social impacts and consumer preference. The advisory group and sub-groups have representation from the green groups, academia, business community and general community. This means they can take in a wide range of views during the assessment process.

The public will be consulted on the best options recommended by the advisory group. They will also be consulted on the likely site for the final option or options, probably by mid-2004.
Composting
Electrical food waste composters are being tried out at Island West Transfer Station
Composting is a natural process that turns food scraps and other organic waste into compost, which can be used to enrich soil. Electric food waste composters have been tried in recent years at Island West Transfer Station, where they reduced the waste by 80 per cent by weight. Several organisations have already installed their own composters, such as the Airport Authority, private housing developments and the Po Lin Monastery.

Household food waste can also be composted and in 2002 the Sha Tin District Council installed electric composters in 15 housing estates. A competition was held to see which estate produced the most compost. The compost was used on landscaped gardens around the estates.


Hong Kong has very little space left for new landfills
Whatever the outcome of the public consultations, however, even waste management technologies will not help prolong the life of the existing landfills. Large-scale integrated waste management facilities take 8 to 10 years to develop. New landfill space is still needed in the short and long term.

Between now and 2050, Hong Kong needs 500 million tonnes of landfill capacity - assuming waste recovery programmes and waste reduction technologies are already in place. The existing landfills have about 100 million tonnes capacity left and another 100 million tonnes could be made available by extending their footprints. That leaves another 300 million tonnes' worth of landfill space to be found.

New publicity materials to encourage waste reduction
There are very limited environmentally acceptable land options for new landfills, possibly just one. Otherwise, an artificial island could be created from inert construction waste to accommodate a large landfill for municipal solid waste to be disposed of above sea level. The possible locations for such an island are limited by conservation and other considerations. Nonetheless, the government recognises that as municipal solid waste is a problem created in Hong Kong, we have an obligation to deal with our waste on our own territory.

The community faces difficult choices in dealing with the waste problem. It must decide on the best waste management technologies for Hong Kong - some of which may have environmental impacts. It must decide how much money it wants to spend. And it must decide where it wants to site these technologies and any new landfills. People are starting to do their part by participating more in recycling programmes. The next stage is to participate in taking the harder decisions, and support the outcome, so Hong Kong can manage its waste in a sustainable, environmentally-acceptable way.
Clinical Waste

The disposal of clinical waste from hospitals and clinics has been a long-standing issue of concern. Currently, the waste is put in special bags and disposed of with prior notice in specially pre-dug trenches at landfills, where it is covered with other material. All of this is done with minimal human contact. The waste is also subject to special collection and storage conditions.

However, the preferred option is to have proper legislative control on the waste delivery, and to incinerate the waste. The government is proposing to modify the Chemical Waste Treatment Centre on Tsing Yi Island to incinerate clinical waste. At the same time, it wants to introduce a clinical waste control scheme. The Hospital Authority and private doctors have been consulted on the scheme, which allows for self-regulation of clinical waste producers, licensing of waste collectors, provision of disposal facility and associated charges. The proposed legislation for the scheme will go to the Legislative Council in 2003.
Clinical waste is collected separately in hospitals

Clinical waste will be incinerated in future, rather than disposed of at landfills

Highlights of 2002
• Started drafting regulation on landfill charges for construction waste.
• Received Expressions of Interest on large-scale waste management technologies for Hong Kong. An advisory group is studying the submissions.
• Tendered for construction of facility for low-level radioactive waste, to be built on Siu A Chau.
• Introduced mobile phone battery recovery and recycling programme, in which manufacturers agreed to take back their end-of-life batteries for recycling.

Looking Ahead
• Further enhance waste reduction and recovery so 40 per cent of municipal solid waste can be recovered by 2007.
• Promote the development of the local recycling industry and to set up a Recovery Park in Tuen Mun, hopefully by 2005.
• Implement a landfill charging scheme to reduce waste.
• Identify new landfill sites.
• Identify and develop the waste management technologies that are best suited for Hong Kong.
• Continue to develop facilities for the proper treatment of sewage sludge and animal carcasses.
• Engage greater involvement of the private sector in the waste management system.
• Promote private sector participation in the development of restored landfills for beneficial uses.