XN000022-1972-03-29 — Page 38

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Wednesday, March 29, 1972

On garbage and pollution of streams in the New Territories,

Mr. Alexander said "the key to the situation, as I believe the Environmental

Pollution Committee has already come to appreciate, is in public enlightenment

coupled with determined enforcement of the law and land use policies and

conditions."

His department was responsible for the collection and disposal

of garbage, and had been over since the New Territories Administration had

shed sundry of its executive duties about 1960 and had begun to give priority

of attention to land policies and administration.

Rural Villages

Simple rural villages in undeveloped agricultural areas needed little

or no rubbish collection but the change of the New Territories to an over-

populated, overgrown series of towns, cottage industrial estates and big

farming businesses had been very rapid, he said.

"I am glad to say, however, that we are at last being provided with

the resources needed to begin catching up, even though in many areas no rates

are as yet paid.'

Mr. Alexander pointed out that there were about 1,000 distinguishable

villages or small settlements in the New Territories, many of them inaccessible

to vehicles.

he added.

"This does not make collection and disposal of refuse any easier,"

His department shifted nearly 470 tons of refuse a day in the

New Territories, he said.

/"I cannot