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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
DR. RONALD D. B. LEUNG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, the activity mentioned by Dr. Tu is organized by the territory-wide Hygiene Services Committee. As I said that this Council is represented by Mr. CHAN and myself, we contribute to that committee and it was organised by the Department of Health. Our health education programmes for the next year will not begin until 1 April. We have got the budget and we got the programmes. It will commence from the 1st of April this year.
MR. MAN SAI-CHEONG (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, as regards our support for environmental protection campaign, one of the most related aspect, is the treatment and disposal of waste. At many forums I have suggested that since the Keep Hong Kong Clean Campaign has so much resources to educate the public to minimize waste production, I wonder if it is possible that this area can be included for discussion at the next Open Meeting in April. Moreover, it is important to reduce the quantity of toxic waste especially chemical waste and medical waste since we are also responsible for collecting all such waste. I know that the Government has intention to make legislation to control the disposal of such waste. As the authority responsible for collection of the waste, it possible to take some measures to make sure that environmental pollution is kept to the minimum?
CHAIRMAN (in English):—Possibly Dr. LEUNG can't answer the first part of your supplementary question. About the next meeting, it is my prerogative to decide on the agenda but if you would like to put down a motion for debate, it might be more productive. So it is up to you to decide in conjunction with the SUC how would you like to deal with it. The second part of the supplementary, can you deal with that, Dr. LEUNG?
DR. RONALD D. B. LEUNG (in English):—The second part is about the collection of toxic wastes. It is also a very topical subject. Actually I understand that you had a discussion at an EPCOM meeting yesterday. Toxic wastes especially clinical wastes are collected by separate authority and not by our Department. We only collect household wastes. Clinical wastes of course contained some radio active elements which can be very dangerous and some toxic drugs contain poisonous and infectious materials. These are collected by a separate authority, the Department of Health. Our Council's collection mainly consists of household or domestic wastes.
DR. SAMUEL P. W. WONG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, the household waste is a small portion of the total waste we have to deal with in Hong Kong, something like twenty or thirty percent. But in any case, I asked the same question some time before i.e. to enable recycling to be more effective, perhaps we should not mix the refuse we collected from household. Is it possible to insist on the private collectors not to mix the waste before they deliver it to our RCPs?
DR. RONALD D. B. LEUNG (in English):—The answer is impossible. In practical terms, the ideal situation would be that the wastes should be separated into paper, glass and tinned tanks. All these valuable recycleable items should be separated. This can be done from a kerbside collection in most overseas countries. This can be easily done and enforced in Japan, America and England where it is much less densely populated and the houses are separated. The collections are from the kerbsides and the authority can refuse taking any refuse if they mix up them. But in Hong Kong situation, where there are multi-storeys, multiple units and high rise blocks, and it would be practically difficult to enforce them if we refuse collections from the private contractors who have every type of refuse all mixed up and deliver to our refuse collection points.
DR. SAMUEL P. W. WONG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, I think it is very the cause or inconvenience of the people when encountered. For example, during the Chinese New Year period refuse collection has been stopped for two or three days then I think every household would know exactly how to separate the smelly dirty portion from the rest of the refuse and keep that in a good container. May be we should charge people who are the private collectors if they bring something which is smelly and mixed up, we will charge them a higher fee, would it be possible?
DR. RONALD D. B. LEUNG (in English):—As far as I know, we don't charge any fees for refuse to be sent to our refuse collection points and I think education is much more important than enforcement in these aspects. If householders are cooperative, they can separate on their own initiative, separate the wastes in different categories, then this will help our task much better. So health education should be the main emphasis. Enforcement would come second. Even if we have the law in place, enforcement would also take up a lot of resources in terms of manpower and time and it would take up a lot of resources to enforce the legislation.
MOTION
1. MR. HILTON CHEONG-LEEN, CHAIRMAN OF THE MARKETS AND STREET TRADERS SELECT COMMITTEE, moved the following motion:
'RESOLVED that:
(a) a Declaration be made under section 79(1) of the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance, Cap. 132 to amend further the Declaration of Markets in the Urban Council Area published in the Gazette as Government Notice Number 1620 of 1960; and
(b) the Public Health and Municipal Services (Public Markets) (Designation and Amendment of Tenth Schedule) (No. 2) Order 1991 be made under section 79(3) and (5) of the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance, Cap. 132.'
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