SCMP.com - Lawmakers likely to block order to expand Tseung Kwan O landfill site in Legco

SCMP.com - Lawmakers likely to block order to expand Tseung Kwan O landfill site in Legco: "SCMP.com - Lawmakers likely to block order to expand Tseung Kwan O landfill site in Legco"

Cheung Chi-fai and Simpson Cheung Oct 13, 2010 Last-ditch appeals by the government to win lawmakers' support for a landfill extension plan look set to fail, as the legislators refuse to budge from their intention to block the proposal. Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau Tang-wah lobbied the four legislators in the informal Professional Forum grouping yesterday, with little success. "He talked about what the government has done about the landfill and how objections to the extension have been dealt with, but this has not swayed our position," said Dr Patrick Lau Sau-shing, a functional constituency lawmaker representing the planning sector. More than 20 functional constituency lawmakers have vowed to back the motion - to be moved today in a Legislative Council meeting - to repeal an order to claim five hectares of the Clear Water Bay Country Park, to extend the Tseung Kwan O landfill. Lawmakers are refusing to compromise over the landfill issue as a row brews over whether they have the power to repeal the order. Yau urged lawmakers to tackle the two issues separately. "It will not be in the interests of Hong Kong if the legislature makes use of the current legal dispute as a means to delay the landfill extension and put on hold the urgent waste treatment issue," he said. Yau acknowledged that it was both "politically and practically unrealistic" to maintain the landfill in Tseung Kwan O, a town that was mostly barren land in the 1970s but is now heavily populated. He said the government had no plan to expand the landfill beyond the scale in the proposal, which would give the site an extra six years of use to 2020. Yau is believed to have begun looking into alternative waste treatment plans. But a green group yesterday challenged lawmakers' commitment to other policies for cutting the waste dumped in landfill. Fewer than half of the lawmakers support fee-based measures to reduce waste on a large scale, according to a poll conducted by Friends of the Earth last week. Only 25 of 59 legislators - including from the Civic Party and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong - backed a scheme under which people would be charged by volume of waste and product responsibility campaigns such as the plastic bag levy. While some in favour of such policies offered conditional support - including stipulating the introduction of incineration and industry initiatives to boost recycling - other lawmakers refused to consider the proposals at all. The Democratic Party, Liberal Party, League of Social Democrats and Federation of Trade Unions are among those unwilling to support such policies. Friends of the Earth's senior environmental affairs officer Michelle Au Wing-tsz said the group was disappointed that the parties had refused to commit to such measures. "We are very disappointed that such big parties do not hold a position or views on these issues," she said. Both the fees-for-waste and product responsibility policies are key parts of the government's waste management framework, which came into effect in 2005. The fee-charging policy for waste has been under study and subject to trials in past years but was never completed. According to the framework it should have been introduced in 2007. The product responsibility scheme has also fallen behind schedule. Action has only been taken on plastic shopping bags - none of the other products listed in the framework are yet part of the scheme. The scheme was supposed to be in place by this year. As the volume of waste continues to increase - by 7.3 per cent over the past five years - not enough has been done to reduce waste at the source, Au said. She claimed the government was under pressure to press ahead with the Tseung Kwan O landfill because waste transport operators preferred to dump waste at the landfill site with the longest opening hours. The two other landfills in Tuen Mun and Ta Kwu Ling will also be expanded, but Tam Chi-wah, chairman of the Waste Disposal Industry Association, warned that operators may go on strike if they are forced to divert waste from Tseung Kwan O. Tam said operators' transport costs would increase if they are forced to use the other sites and that extra cost would be passed on in the form of waste disposal fees paid by those in private housing estates and office buildings. Dr Man Chi-sum, chief executive of Green Power, said the government would face an uphill battle trying to push through other landfill expansion and waste incineration plans. "People will oppose these unpopular facilities," he said. He urged the government to introduce a city-wide scheme to increase recycling of food waste at district or even street level. Food waste accounts for about 30 to 40 per cent of waste dumped in landfill.