+
Sunday, May 14, 1972
EXPANSION OF HARBOUR CLEANSING FLEET
For Better Refuse Collection
********
The Marine Department is to expand the existing harbour cleansing
fleet in order to provide better refuse collection services in typhoon
shelters and in the harbour.
The department will provide a boat-to-boat refuse collection service
within the Yau Ma Tei and Causeway Bay Typhoon shelters, a general scavenging
service within the port of Aberdeen, and a free ship-to-ship refuse collection
service in the harbour for a trial period of six months.
A department spokesman said the existing harbour cleansing service
for the whole of Victoria Harbour came into operation in October 1964, and
is provided by a fleet of four mechanised cargo boats and 12 sampans.
In typhoon shelters, he said, refuse dumping by boat people
constitutes a source of harbour pollution affecting not only the shelters
but, because of the action of wind and tides, also the entire Victoria
harbour area.
"The only feasible method of inducing the boat people to dispose
of their refuse in a hygienic manner is the introduction of a boat-to-boat
refuse collection service," he said.
The collection sampans will be stationed permanently in the shelters
and will operate to a fixed schedule. At lease five sampans, each with a
crew of three men, will be required to provide the service at Yau Ma Tei and
Causeway Bay typhoon shelters.
/For the