What should we do with Hong Kongs Waste? (Geography)By: Angus Lau 8A (13)Teacher: Mr. Kelvin SitSupervisor: Mr. Richard Millham

Would you want to live in an unsanitary, pungent smelling country? Obviously not. However, this comes down to our key problem: waste. Waste, is a common difficulty faced by affluent societies, when people can afford more products that brings greater convenience. Hong Kong is no exception to this problem. Its waste has rapidly shot upwards since 1986 because of the massive economic growth. This engendered the disposal rate of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) to 1.30 kg per person per day in 2012. (edp.gov) Even though the rates have decreased 0.13 kg per person per day from its peak in 1993, the population of Hong Kong has proliferated to about 1.1 million. (census2011.gov) This causes a lot of waste going into landfills every day, but the three main ones, Tseung Kwan O (South), Ta Kwu Ling (North) and Nim Wan (West) will all be filled by 2015, 2017 and 2019 respectively. However, there are many protests against the idea of building an incinerator in Hong Kong, so what should we do with Hong Kongs waste?

Before we investigate the possible solutions on what we should do with Hong Kongs waste, we should first investigate the different types of waste. Firstly, introducing Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), the most common waste. There are mainly three sources of MSW, including domestic solid waste, commercial solid waste and industrial solid waste. Domestic solid waste comes from households and public areas. Commercial solid waste comes from shops, restaurants, hotels, and offices. Industrial solid waste is generated by all industries, but does not include construction and demolition waste, chemical waste or other special waste. (edp.gov) This kind of waste counts for 45 per cent of our total waste in Hong Kong and it is mostly kept in landfills.

Secondly, food waste. The European Union Commission defines food waste as food that is thrown away, either because they are not needed, or because they must be thrown away by law. (eurlex.eu) The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines food waste as "uneaten food and food preparation wastes from residences and shops such as grocery stores, restaurants, or institutional cafeterias, and industrial sources like employee lunchrooms". (Epa.gov.us)

The other less major types of wastes are construction waste, chemical waste and clinical waste. Construction waste is anything generated as a result of construction and then abandoned, regardless of whether it has been processed or stockpiled. Chemical waste is defined by reference to a list of substances and chemicals (reproduced in Appendix 1) that causes pollution or constitutes a danger to health. Clinical waste means waste consisting of any substance, matter or things belongs into the 5 categories: used or contaminated sharps, laboratory waste, human and animal tissues, infectious materials and dressings.

However, even if there are that many kinds of trash, where does all our unwanted trash go? To the landfill. At this day, there are 3 active landfills in Hong Kong, West New Territories (WENT) Landfill; South East New Territories (SENT) Landfill; and North East New Territories (NENT) Landfill. In Appendix 2 is the basic information about the three landfills. As we can see, we all face a crisis, as the Landfills in Hong Kong are starting to saturate, and the process would be hastier as the SENT and NENT Landfills are filled and only the WENT Landfill is left. After all the Landfills are saturated, we would have no place to store our trash, because this is the only way to get rid of trash in Hong Kong.

However, why are Hong Kongs landfills starting to saturate? It is mainly because of three reasons. Firstly, the population of Hong Kong is constantly increasing; secondly, the disposal rate per capita is not decreasing significantly, and most importantly, people protesting against expanding landfills, constructing incinerators, or even the $33 million consultancy to review the Tuen Mun landfill expansion plan. (scmp.com) Therefore, the Hong Kong government has no other option but to wait for the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) for a new budget proposal.

Unfortunately, with many people suggesting that Hong Kong people are selfish, narrow-minded and believe in the motto Not in my backyard (scmp.com), all the waste treatment facilities would not be built or extended. What people detest about the incinerator is dioxin, which is released in the process of burning trash. Dioxins are highly toxic chemicals that can cause reproductive and developmental problems, and also cause cancer. (World health organisation.com) Actually, only a trace, or none would be found in the flue gas because there is a gas treatment and filtering system in the incinerator and it is only a perception from the people.

On top of that, another problem is the lack of time for building integrated waste management facilities (IWMF). Waste management facilities include facilities that provide the collection, transport, processing or disposal, managing and monitoring of waste materials. There are many kinds of waste management facilities: landfills, refuse transfer stations, chemical waste treatment centres, recycling stations, composting plants (edp.gov), mechanical biological treatment plants, Envac Automated Waste Collection Systems and incinerators. Moreover, only landfills, mechanical biological treatment plants, and incinerators can really help store or get rid of MSW. However, landfills face too many protests, and mechanical biological treatment plants can only process 150 tonnes of trash everyday. Therefore, the only option is the IWMF which consists of a thermal incinerator and a sorting and recycling plant that would be able to process 3000 tonnes and 200 tonnes of trash per day respectively, (epd.gov) with 6286 tonnes of MSW produced per day. However, it takes at least 5 years to plan, build and operate the IWMF, assuming that there would be no disturbance for the budget approval. Consequently, all the landfills in Hong Kong would be saturated, and our city would be drowned in waste.

Due to the fact that the plan for building IWMF and the extension of the three landfills were not accepted by the public and Legco, the only way now is source reduction, consisting of a charging system, promotions, the 3Rs and the subsidy in the recycling industry.

The charging system now is under consideration and consultancy in the government. The principal of this system is the more you dispose, the more you pay, and there are 3 ways to assess how much you use: by the measurement of water consumption; the use of specialized garbage bags; and charge via management fee.

For the first method, the trash fee will be charged proportionally to the water consumption rate, and the water authorities would collect the fee. For the second method, the government would issue a kind of garbage bag, which the garbage truck would only collect trash inside it. At the same time, the government would have to minimize the number of trashcans on the streets and install monitoring systems to prevent people from putting their waste in the public trashcans. For the last method, the charge is in proportion to the total floor area and evenly distributed amongst each flat, and the management company would collect it.

Another method to source reduction is through promotions. Due to the landfill saturating, the government had to promote the message of source reduction, through commercials, the News, leaflets, or mascots like the litterbug and most importantly, lectures at schools or additional topics in the subject liberal studies to make all citizens bear in mind that we have to be considerate of our own environment.

On top of that, Reuse, Reduce and Recycle (3R) plays a critical role. The 3Rs are derived from the EU Waste hierarchy. There are 5 options in the waste hierarchy, Reduce, meaning to use less material in manufacture; Reuse, meaning to clean, repair, refurbish items to transform into useful daily tools; Recycle, turning waste into new products; Recovery, including anaerobic digestion, incineration with energy recovery, gasification etcetera; Disposal, putting waste in landfills or incinerators without energy recovery. (andrewmartlow.com) In Hong Kong, it has mostly only been doing recycling and disposal, as seen from the increase of recycling bins, and from dumping everything into the landfill. However, as the crisis approaches, there have been changes. Now, the government has proposed a campaign called Food Wise, to encourage Hong Kong businesses/organizations in adopting measures to reduce food waste within their establishment. (Foodwise.com) This means that the government encourages people to reduce more waste, which is one step further into saving the environment.

Last but not least, subsidies for the recycling industry. Even though there are relatively more recycling bins around in Hong Kong, 99% of our local materials to be recycled are exported for further overseas processing (mainly China), so our local waste recycling industry is limited to the primary phase of processing: recovery, bale and exports. However, this has little economic value, and is only able to create few job opportunities. Also, being too dependent on exports makes the industry vulnerable to external economic factors, such as the global financial tsunami in 2008, which caused the waste paper price plummeting from HK$2,000 to HK$700 per tonne and making the process of recycling profitless and unavoidable. (greenpower.org) Therefore, with this huge problem in the recycling industry, the only way to save the industry is for the government to produce subsidies so people could open more Eco Parks and would solve the problem of waste exportng.

In addition, we should have the " Producer Responsibility Scheme", such as implementing laws making it compulsory for producers to recollect their produced waste products. Alternatively, there can be extra charges on certain products to cover costs of recycling and collection. (greenpower.org) The main advantage of the scheme is to ensure importers; distributors, retailer and consumers share the responsibility for recycling.

Moreover, even if the extension of the landfill faced protests from the Tseung Kwan O residents or encourages source reduction, there is no option left for temporary solutions, as other projects take too long to build. Also, even if we have incinerators or combustion plants, it only reduces the trash to about ten per cent of their original waste, and the ten per cent still has to go to the landfill. Still, there are some things that the government might do to improve the situation of the landfills.

Due to the 1120 complaints by residents in Tseung Kwan O saying that there are nauseating smells coming from the 3600 garbage trucks that go in and out of the landfill, the government decided that the new garbage trucks should all be fully enclosed, so that the nauseating smell in Wan Po road would go away. Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam Sing said that the vehicles should have a fully enclosed tailgate cover as well as a wastewater sump tank. These features can enhance the environmental performance of the trucks and minimise environmental impact. (highbeam.com) On top of that, he said that the government proposed that there would be a nine-month subsidy for the people who would buy the new fully enclosed garbage truck.

Furthermore, the Tseung Kwan O residents complained about the traffic jams caused by garbage trucks. As Sai Kung District Council member Alfred Kan Siu Kei said, "Huge garbage trucks block roads, causing traffic jams and posing threats to pedestrian safety, more so for children and the elderly." (standard.com) Therefore, to make it more convenient for drivers to go into the area, the government should create a traffic lane that is only for the garbage trucks.

Additionally, due to some misunderstandings about the possible leakage of dioxin and air pollutants in the IWMF, the government has to find ways to solve this problem. They could have lectures and show examples of places that have modern IWMF systems, like Taiwan and Japan, which are next to housing estates and provide electricity to power recreation facilities nearby. The most amazing one is the Bei-tou incinerator in Taiwan next to residential areas, where there is a revolving restaurant in the middle of the chimney. Another way is to organise tours for people to go on trips and visit these IWMF facilities that are fruitful and informative expedition. In addition, the government could give priorities to use recreation facilities or compensations like decreasing the electricity fee for the people who live near the IWMF.

After the brief introduction of the different kinds of waste, what are the problems we face in waste disposal, and the possible solutions to solve this problem, the writer gainsays that even though that people, staunchly oppose the fact that the landfills need to be expanded and IWMFs need to be built, it still has be done, because there would still be a lot of waste, even if we do source reduction, and the ten per cent of residues from the IWMF would still go to the landfill. These are the steps we have to do in order to prevent Hong Kong from becoming a city of waste. Conclusively, the writer staunchly concurs that we should implement source reduction, extend the landfill, and build the IWMF to extend the life of the landfill.

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Appendix 1

List of chemicals or substances that are chemical waste if present Any substance to which the Antibiotics Ordinance (Cap. 137) applies Asbestos Dangerous drugs (as defined in the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance (Cap. 134)) Dangerous Goods, category 2, NES Dangerous Goods, category 6, NES

Dangerous Goods, category 9, NES Dibenzofurans Dioxins Pesticides (as defined in the Pesticides Ordinance (Cap. 133)) Poisons (as defined in the Pharmacy and Poisons Ordinance ) Polychlorinated biphenyls

Reference: EPD.gov http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/waste/guide_ref/files/guide_e.pdf

Appendix 2

WENT LandfillSENT LandfillNENT Landfill

LocationNim Wan, Tuen MunTai Chik Sha, Tseung Kwan OTa Kwu Ling, New Territorries

Site area (Hectare)11010061

Capacity (Mm3)614335

Waste intake 2012(Per day in tonnes)640048002700

Operation Life2018/192014/152016/17

Waste typeMSWMSW, specialMSW, special

Reference: EPD.govhttp://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/waste/prob_solutions/msw_went.html http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/waste/prob_solutions/msw_sent.html http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/waste/prob_solutions/msw_nent.html