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reduction of refuse, reduction of heaped up garbage, transportation of refuse to landfills, education on the concept of environmental protection, enlist the assistance of stall operators and traders through encouragement and innovation. With the cooperation of environmental groups, we can implement this more forcefully and extensively. Although this is not something that can be accomplished overnight, we should endeavour to do so as a long term strategy.
Mr. Chairman, with these remarks, I move the motion. Thank you.
Mr. Ronnie Wong Man-chiu (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, I second the motion.
Mr. Chiang Sai-Cheong (in Cantonese):-I am all in support of Mr. Daniel To Boon-man's motion. In fact, I hope that we can ring out the message of protecting the environment and reducing waste at all our venues and all kinds of activities staged by us. It is a traditional Chinese custom to hold Lunar New Year fairs every year and a lot of people visit the fairs. Fair venues can be an important place to promote Council services. We raised this issue in the past. I do not know if we have enough time left before the fairs this year, but if it is at all feasible, I hope we can do our utmost to set up publicity display boards and invite environmentalists to help promote environmental protection and reduction of waste. It will be good for the education of the public and it will add to the public's knowledge of the Council's work.
Mr. Chairman, with these remarks, I second the motion.
MR. ALBERT Lai WING-LIN (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, Mr. To's motion can be compared to one that calls for us to drink water every day. We definitely support it. However, I think some of the points he mentioned are open to discussion. For example, we advise traders to leave behind certain items and move away others for environmental protection. For some people, they are selling flowers only provisionally (or once a year). If they have to move away the left over flowers, how are they going to dispose of them? Even if they respond to our call and move everything away, in the end, the items are disposed of all the same, What good does it do to environmental protection? From the angle of cleaning, such an action makes the fair venues cleaner and better to look at. From the angle of environmental protection, what good does it do if flowers moved away are eventually disposed of?
As for calling fair participants to give left over flowers to others, the intention behind may be charitable gestures to old people's homes etc, but if we want this to happen, we may as well not buy flowers from the operators. A lot of issues will evolve. As such, I am in support of publicity on environmental protection. The more publicity there is, the more positive results will come off.
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