X. C. 1323.
For Discussion,
MEMORANDUM FOR EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.
High
COMPOST.
Sect. File 23/641/50.
155
the
Al
prevent
One of the most serious and costly problems of this Colony is urban sanitation which involves collecting and transporting large quantities of city refuse to sites in the Port of Victoria and in other parts of the Colony adjacent to Hong Kong Island for use in the formation of reclamations, and the collecting and disposal of nightsoil from the many areas in Victoria and Kowloon where for different reasons the flush lavatory system has not been installed. (Reservoir supplies are insufficient to allow water to be used universally for flushing and in general in urban areas it is only allowed in Goverment or public buildings. Some areas use well or stream water for flushing, but in many parts of Victoria such alternative supplies are not available and water-borne sanitation is therefore impossible. Further, the design of the older type of tenement makes it difficult if not impossible to instal water closets).
:
2.
Nightsoil is at present collected in pails which are then transported to sea a few miles west of Hong Kong Island where the currents are such that it can be dumped into the sea without affecting any of the neighbouring shores. The pails are then washed in sea water and returned for further use. This is a somewhat primitive system of dealing with the problem and in view of the overcrowded condition of the urban area and the correspondingly increased need for maintaining hygienic conditions it is considered essential that as soon as possible proper sterilization methods should be introduced in cleansing the nights oil palls.
3.
This is the most important of the three related problems with which this memorandum deals.
4.
The second problem, also an urban one though of somewhat less import.nce, is that in removing refuse to reclamation, areas no proper salvage work is donc and a great deal of material which can be salvaged and re-used in some other form is thus wasted. If comparison may be made with salvage conditions in the United Kingdom it will be appreciated that in an urban area as large as that of Victoria and Kowloon with a population of nearly two million the amount of salvage lost is very large.
5.
The third problem is a rural one. For centuries past in this part of the world Chinese farmers have used raw nightsoil as their main fertilizer. Last year the Government organised the proper distribution of urban nightsoil in securely-lidded buckets on the theory that if some satisfactory alternative to raw nightsoil could not be found the least that could be done was to control the distribution of it in the interest of greater hygiene. With the subsequent increase in the garrison and the considerable number of military camps that have been set up in the New Territories the Government has recently accepted the advice of both civil and military medical authorities that everything possible should be done to present the use of raw nightsoil by the farmers, due to its being an agency in the spread of hookworm and to the fact that flies breed on the surface of the nightsoil sumps, and that as a first step the organised distribution of urban nightsoil should come to an end. The distribution was stopped, and the Government is now faced with the problem of providing a suitable alternative fertilizer for use by New Territories farmers. Matured nightsoil has been considered but the idea of undertaking large-scale production of matured nightsoil has been rejected on the advice of the medical authorities since in the process of maturation the helminth ova in hightsoil are not rendered entirely imctive. The solution therefore and this is agreed by the Administration, the Urban Council and the Government's medical and agricultural advisers is to introduce the use of compost.
6.
A