SCMP.com - Tseung Kwan O residents protest landfill plan

SCMP.com - Tseung Kwan O residents protest landfill plan: "SCMP.com - Tseung Kwan O residents protest landfill plan"

Regina Leung
6:49pm, Oct 12, 2010

A group of Tseung Kwan O residents and district councillors on Tuesday protested outside government headquarters in Central to express their opposition to government plans to extend the Tseung Kwan O landfill.

This comes as legislators on Wednesday prepare to move a motion to scrap an order by the chief executive authorising the extension of the landfill site into five hectares of Clear Water Bay Country Park.

The protesters, yelling slogans and waving banners, urged the government to halt the landfill expansion and close down the Tseung Kwan O landfill.

They also said that a government plan to postpone the landfill expansion by 14 months would not resolve the current odour problems at the landfill. p>

Environmental group Friends of the Earth (HK) on Tuesday also said that the landfill extension would not resolve Hong Kong’s waste management problem.

Waste charging and producer responsibility schemes were a better solution, a spokesman for the group said.

The latest Friends of the Earth (HK) survey found that at least 26 legislators believed waste charging and producer responsibility schemes were a better solution to the problem.

The lawmakers surveyed included those from the Civic Party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) and independent lawmakers, Cyd Ho Sau-lan and Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee.

The Friends of the Earth spokesman also said he hoped Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau Tang-wah could introduce an ordinance for a new producer responsibility scheme (PRS) for waste electrical and electronic equipment by end of the year and that a public consultation on waste charging schemes could be launched next year.