| Our Responsibilities | Connecting with the Public | Achievements in 2004 |

Our Responsibilities

We aim to promote community awareness through environmental campaigns, publicity, education and action programmes, and public access to environmental information, with a view to harnessing the community's support for, and contribution to, achieving the desired environmental goals.

Connecting with the Public

The EPD operates a wide range of programmes that reach every sector of society, as described below. Our website is also an important tool for communicating with the public and operators, in a green, paper-less manner. In 2004 the website was enhanced to make it more reader friendly and to conform to the Government-wide design format of Common Look and Feel. We are also continuing to place environmental resource materials and information about our programmes and facilities on our website, to provide the public with easy access to the latest information.

Achievements in 2004
| Community Relations Unit | Campaigns | Schools | Other Community Activities | Press Releases and Publications |

Community Relations Unit

The Community Relations Unit is the main co-ordinator of the EPD's community education programmes, as well as the secretariat to the government-appointed Environmental Campaign Committee (ECC), which organises community participation programmes. In 2004 the Unit:

Photo of The EPD organizes training programmes for different government departments.

Campaigns

Waste: Waste reduction continued to be the main focus of campaigns in 2004. The Waste Reduction Campaign in Housing Estates has accumulated 1 420 participants since 1998, as seen in Table 1. Paper, aluminium cans and plastic bottles are collected from each block of an estate. In 2004, in an effort to expand the scheme, the pilot programme on "Source Separation of Waste" (also known as "Super 3R") was launched to collect a wide range of recyclables on each floor of apartment blocks (see also 5.2e Environmentally Sound Waste Management and Facilities for details). In addition, $5.33 million was granted to green groups and community groups for 22 waste recovery projects in 2004 under the Government's Environment and Conservation Fund. Another $0.34 million was granted during the year to fund 19 environmental education and community action projects related to waste recovery.

Annual events: Two annual campaigns are held. World Environment Day, held June 5 each year, was celebrated in 2004 under the theme "Reduce Waste, Make Polluters Pay". More than 60 000 school staff, Student Environmental Protection Ambassadors and members of the public participated in games booths, workshops, district activities, environmental activities and green trail walks organised by 27 green groups and non-government organisations. The second annual campaign, the Environmental Protection Festival, was scheduled for January 2005 rather than the end of 2004, to enable the event to be tendered out to community and green groups on a trial basis. The slogan is "Love Our Nature, Separate Waste at Home".

Photo of Dr Sarah Liao, Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works (third from left, front row), Mrs Rita Fan, President of LegCo (second from left), Mr Rob Law, former Director of Environmental Protection (far left), together with artist Ms Nancy Sit and other officiating guests, kick-start the Green Trail Walk to echo World Environment Day 2004.

Schools

Waste: Waste separation and recycling bins have been installed in 1 192 schools since 2002, funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. The remaining 100 or so schools do not have space. Another 870 pre-schools have mini-bins to use as teaching tools.

Education: To supplement the school curriculum, the EPD produced subject-specific environmental teaching materials for primary and secondary schools, covering general studies, visual arts, integrated science, geography, chemistry, biology, physics, economics, public affairs and social studies. The Education and Manpower Bureau provided comment on the materials, which are linked to the Hong Kong syllabus, and green groups helped to prepare them. In addition, 17 environmental education training workshops on various topics were held for 823 teachers.

SEAS cum SEPAS: The ECC operates the School Environmental Award Scheme (SEAS) cum Student Environmental Protection Ambassador (SEPA) Scheme to promote involvement in environmental issues. The number of participating schools and students has grown steadily since these programmes began in 1995, as seen in Figures 1 and 2. In the 2004/05 school year, 11 975 students from 750 schools were made SEPAs at the end of 2004. The EPD has also trained 486 teachers to assess SEPAs for the Basic Environmental Badge since the badge system was launched in the 2003/04 school year.

Figure 1 - Number of Schools Participating in the School Environmental Award Scheme since 1995 (See Data)

Figure 2 - Number of Student Environmental Protection Ambassadors since 1995 (See Data)

Green School Awards: These awards were launched in 2000, with sponsorship from the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited. In 2003/04, 186 primary and secondary schools participated and 31 primary and 22 secondary schools achieved Green School status. Additionally, 27 pre-schools were awarded Green Pre-school status.