Serinah Ho
Standard Post
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Residents and businesses will soon have to pay more for the removal of waste.
But to know by how much, they must wait until early next year, environment chief Edward Yau Tang-wah said yesterday.
Yau also said the public will be consulted on implementing the new charging scheme for the removal of solid waste under the "polluter pays" principle.
"The scheme can also help in waste reduction since polluters will be charged according to the amount of waste to be disposed."
The Advisory Council on the Environment will also have to assess the effectiveness of the scheme to reduce waste at source, which "may encounter difficulties as some may dispose of waste away from their residences."
Yau's comments came as a Baptist University study recommended that power-generating waste incinerators be built in each of the five geographical constituencies to deal with the solid waste problem.
This may help burn 8,000 tonnes of waste and generate electricity for 200,000 households each day, the study said.
Since legislators rejected the Tseung Kwan O landfill extension plan, the government is now looking for sites on which to build two incinerators, Yau said. He hopes once the sites are chosen there will be no opposition from the public, "since one of the landfills will be full by 2013."
However he emphasized that burning rubbish will not suffice.
Baptist University Contemporary China Studies professor Sit Fung-shuen said the five incinerators should be built within 10 years.
"The two government proposed locations - Tuen Mun's Tsang Tsui and Lantau Island's Shek Kwu Chau - can be built in the next two to three years to relieve the solid waste problem after the Tseung Kwan O landfill is full in 2013," Sit said.
However, he too agreed burning rubbish will not solve all waste problems and that landfills will still be needed.
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