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Role of recycling stressed
Recycling plays an important role in the new Waste Reduction Strategy currently under consultation, the Director of Environmental Protection, Mr Robert Law, said today (Tuesday).
Addressing the general assembly of the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) Convention, Mr Law said the increase in quantity of waste produced by a community correlated directly with the increase in gross domestic product (GDP). In Hong Kong, more than 20,000 tonnes of waste are produced every day, which are disposed of at three of the world's largest hi-tech landfills.
But these landfills would be exhausted in about 15 years, unless we adopted a new approach, Mr Law said.
The Waste Reduction Strategy includes proposals to minimise the amount of waste produced at source, and proposals for more efficient bulk waste reduction, such as the use of hi-tech waste-to-power incineration facilities.
"But recycling is a key element of the strategy. At present, we recover 38 per cent of municipal waste for recycling either here in Hong Kong, or overseas," Mr Law said.
In 1995, Hong Kong exported 1.6 million tonnes of waste for recycling and earned $3 billion in the process.
Noting that currently only eight per cent of the waste in the domestic waste sector were recovered, Mr Law said much more could and should be done to increase the recovery rates for recyclable materials.
Other than the physical constraints of Hong Kong's living conditions which partly accounted for the relatively poor performance in this area, Mr Law said the economics must be right in the first place to encourage and sustain the recycling business.
"We must, therefore, as part of our overall strategy, examine the various economic factors at play to see how greater impetus can be given to the recycling business," Mr Law said.