Page 128 of 132
250
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
CHAIRMAN (in Cantonese):-Are you trying to help with answering questions or are you asking questions, Miss YEUNG? I think you are trying to help with answering the question.
MISS CECILIA YEUNG LAI-YIN (in Cantonese):—No, I am trying to ask whether there should be a Rats Immigration Department?
PROFESSOR LEUNG PING-CHUNG (in Cantonese):-Perhaps the Rats Immigration Department should be chaired by Miss YEUNG. We are dealing with people only.
MR. SAN STEPHEN WONG HON-CHING (in Cantonese):-Miss YEUNG has just talked about educating our general public. I think this is really necessary. I have a question. In busy areas e.g. Wan Chai, Causeway Bay, Mong Kok, Yau Tsim, the litter containers become full very quickly and collection of refuse appears to be not frequent enough. I would like to ask whether he can consider stepping up the frequency of clearing of such litter containers, which might help to improve the situation? Another question for Professor LEUNG is: Will there be a plan to produce a video for publicity purposes of asking members of the public not to dispose of food remnants indiscriminately? They may think that their original intention is to feed dogs and cats, but probably they are at the same time feeding the rats. So perhaps we should have a video for publicity purposes to educate members of the public not to leave food remnants around litter containers.
PROFESSOR LEUNG PING-CHUNG (in Cantonese):-Mr. WONG's suggestion is a constructive one. As I said in my main reply, in all our litter containers, people tend to dump refuse around litter containers and the Department is also saying that there are black spots. In order to solve this problem, the Department operates two special refuse collection routes to empty the litter containers at black spots and any overflow deposits after mid-night. As the special routes only cover some of the black spots, they don't go around all the 11 000 litter containers. We hope the Department can work much harder at these black spots and try to make sure that refuse is removed from the litter containers frequently. As far as the question on people dumping food remnants indiscriminately on the streets is concerned, I know we have not really got any specific publicity and educational materials on this. Perhaps we should have posters, videos or APIs to draw public attention not to leave any food remnants for feeding dogs or cats.
MR. STEPHEN LAU MAN-LUNG (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, in paragraph 2 of the reply, it says that there are still 101 temporary RCPs. I remember years ago that the Urban Council did discuss this issue saying that when the redevelopment of these old areas took place, the private developers should be asked to include RCPs in their layout plans. I would like to ask: in the past few years, have we managed to get any result in this regard? As there are still 101 temporary RCPs, will they be turned permanent somehow?
Page 128 of 132
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 128 of 132
251
PROFESSOR LEUNG PING-CHUNG (in Cantonese): In relation to the 101 temporary RCPs, whether it has shown a reduction already or whether we are planning to make them permanent, unfortunately I don't have such information now. As for whether private developers will help, I am afraid I don't have the information either. But I can pass on Mr. LAU's question to the Department and give a reply to Mr. LAU later.
THE HONOURABle Li Wah Ming (in English):—Mr. Chairman, I wish to take this up from the angle of the relationship between refuse and rats. In contact with the staff of the Housing Department, they said that our pesticide has been actually the same for over ten years and rats have got used to such pesticide. Therefore the rats have become much wiser and we are unable really to combat them. I wonder if the Chairman of Public Health Select Committee will take this up with the Department? If this is really the case, perhaps we should think about using other chemicals for the rats.
PROFESSOR LEUNG PING-CHUNG (in English):—Mr. Chairman, for the sake of convenience, I would like to answer in English because there are some terms which are more conveniently expressed in English. Talking about the rat poisons, one has to be certain to understand that so called rat poisons nowadays are no longer poisons. We use anti-coagulant to kill rats. We used to use phosphorus compounds to kill rats but then we stop using that already because the phosphorous compounds are also poisonous to human beings. So we are using now the anti-coagulant so that the rats would take in the food with anti-coagulant and then on the slightest bodily injury, the rats would bleed to death. This could happen even when they are biting. Once they got injured there would be non-stop bleeding until death. Rats are rodents. Rodents would never stop biting, in so doing, their own teeth will be damaging their own gums and so produce usually minor bleeding. But having eaten the anti-coagulant there would be continuous bleeding and this bleeding would kill the rats. So there is no question and there is no worry about whether the drugs, the poisons need to be renewed. The anti-coagulant would remain anti-coagulant and would be effective. Of course, the baits used together with the anti-coagulant can be changed from time to time and I believe this is being done. In fact, I have seen that different baits are used myself. So I think there are a lot of misunderstanding between the scientific aspect of rodent killing and the reality. During the Public Health Select Committee meeting, some Members challenged about the population of rats in Hong Kong. If you read this document, it says our figures are not worse than any other cities. It is true. Some Members quoted over 10 million rats and they were appalled and alarmed with the figure. In fact, the normal number of rodent population should be equal to the number of population in that particular city. So the normal figure for rat population in Hong Kong should be approaching 6.5 million and this figure should be considered normal. If the figure gets above that, doubling that number, the number is getting suspicious. If the number is reaching three times the population figure, it becomes dangerous. So these are the basic data that one
Page 128 of 132