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Other good news included the introduction and enforcement of comprehensive legislation to deal with air and water pollution, wastes management, and the control of noise and of ozone layer depleting substances. The latest addition was the gazettal of the Environmental Impact Assessment Bill, he said.
Another piece of good news highlighted by Dr Reed was the creation of a body of professional and technical staff able to deal with environmental protection work.
"In the past two decades, environmental protection has become a well established field of professional activity in Hong Kong, with large numbers of well qualified and well experienced staff in both the public and private sectors, and an array of professional institutions and associations to support their work," he said.
While it was necessary to recruit environmental professionals overseas when the Environmental Protection Unit (EPU) was established in 1977, Dr Reed said he was happy to see the number of professional staff grow from five in the original EPU to the present 393, with the percentage of local staff increasing from zero to more than 94 per cent over the same time period.
On the problems still facing Hong Kong's environment, Dr Reed said the most pressing one was exhaust emissions from diesel-engined motor vehicles.
While Hong Kong has less sulphur dioxide, less oxides of nitrogen and less carbon monoxide in the air than places like New York and London, it has more small particles than most other cities, and these originate mainly from diesel vehicles.
He reiterated that the "diesel to petrol" scheme, together with other measures in the pipeline, would solve the problem.
He disagreed with assertions that better maintenance for diesel vehicles on its own would be an alternative because a pristine diesel engine straight off the production line gave out large quantities of small particles and the amount increased substantially with age.
Neither did Dr Reed agree that the maintenance of petrol driven vehicles would be ruinously expensive as compared with the cost of properly maintaining diesel vehicles, which he said did not happen at present in Hong Kong.
"You will see that I feel very strongly that a more constructive attitude is needed by those who are currently obstructing the scheme, if indeed they are sincerely concerned, as they claim to be, about the health of the community in Hong Kong," he said.
As for other issues for the future, Dr Reed said one was the need to reduce the amount of solid wastes so as to extend the life of the three strategic landfills.