15
The Environment
Community participation is encouraged through district-based education. The Community Recycling Network promotes waste reduction and recycling, and sets up collection points at the community level to receive recyclables of low commercial value. In 2019, another community green station was commissioned in Tai Po, bringing the number of operating stations to eight.
During the year, the department stepped up its outreach initiative in the Sha Tin, Kwun Tong and Eastern districts, providing on-site guidance and hands-on demonstrations, and disseminating key updated green messages through regular visits. These efforts support waste reduction at source and clean recycling on the ground, and prepare the public for the implementation of municipal solid waste charging at the community level.
Between 2014 and 2018, an annual average of 49 per cent of paper and 91 per cent of metal in municipal solid waste was recovered. The annual average recovery rate of plastics was 11 per cent.
During the same period, an average of 80 per cent of solid waste, including municipal solid waste and overall construction waste, was recovered each year, working out to an annual average of 22 million tonnes recovered. This annual average was 4 per cent higher than the 21 million tonnes recovered between 2009 and 2013.
EcoPark
More than 90 per cent of recyclable municipal solid waste is exported for recycling every year, with plastics, paper and metals contributing about 95 per cent of the recovered waste. The 20-hectare EcoPark in Tuen Mun promotes development of the recycling industry by providing long-term land at affordable rents so as to encourage investment in advanced technologies and value-added recycling processes. Twelve lots are leased to private recyclers to recycle cooking oil, scrap metal, wood, WEEE, plastics, construction materials, glass, rubber tyres, food, batteries and paper.
Recycling Fund
A $1 billion Recycling Fund, launched in 2015, is open for applications. Enhancement measures were rolled out in 2019 after a mid-term review of the fund's operation. The measures included launching a new rental subsidy scheme, increasing the maximum upfront payment, simplifying the application procedures, and raising the funding amounts and duration of funded projects for recycling enterprises. As at end-December, 247 projects were either in progress or ready to start, involving total funding of about $247 million.
Waste Treatment and Disposal
Refuse Transfer Stations
Municipal solid waste is collected and delivered to refuse transfer stations by refuse collection vehicles, packed into containers and then taken to landfills in bulk by sea or land. A network of 13 transfer facilities handled about 3.2 million tonnes of such waste in 2018, delivering about 77 per cent of municipal solid waste to landfills.
242