HEALTH
115
as rats, mice, cockroaches, ants, fleas, bed-bugs, and biting midges. In the New Territories it also carries out measures for the control of flies and mosquitoes. The supervision of slaughterhouses, and also of shops and markets selling fresh food, provides another means of controlling health conditions. It is hoped that the difficulty of maintaining high standards in the present old and inadequate slaughterhouses will be relieved by two new abattoirs now being built. Street hawking is an integral part of the Hong Kong daily scene. There are 30,500 licensed hawkers engaged full or part-time in this trade and probably as many again who are unlicensed. While there is no denying that hawkers meet a public need, such numbers cause congestion and obstruction in narrow streets and give rise to health problems. The Urban Council, which is the authority for licensing and controlling hawkers, is gradually meeting these problems by concentrating hawkers in side streets and bazaar areas where the Hawker Control Force can be most effectively deployed. The sale of fresh meat, fish and poultry by hawkers is prohibited in the interests of public health and these commodities may be sold only by licensed shops or market stalls where hygienic standards can be maintained. The great majority of pedlar hawkers therefore sell vegetables and fruit.
Most districts have markets where the housewife can buy fresh meat, fish, poultry, fruit and vegetables under hygienic conditions. Many of these markets, however, are old and out-moded, making it difficult to maintain hygienic standards, and the Markets Select Committee of the Urban Council has embarked on a programme of market reconstruction. This runs parallel with its policy of providing new markets in areas where they are needed.
The quantity of city garbage cleared daily in 1965 amounted to some 1,500 tons. This was carried from Hong Kong Island by barges to a coastal dump at Gin Drinker's Bay; from Kowloon the refuse was carried direct to the dump. Two large oil-fired incinerators, each with a capacity of 1,000 tons of refuse a day, were under construction on each side of harbour at the end of the year. Nearly 5,000 labourers were employed on street cleansing, the removal of refuse and nightsoil collection. Difficulty was experienced in recruiting labour for street cleansing and the first mechanized street sweeping vehicle was put into use.