Sessional_Paper_1899 — Page 150

HONGKONG.

No.

REPORT ON THE PROPOSED ERECTION OF A REFUSE DESTRUCTOR FOR THE CITY OF VICTORIA, HONGKONG.

Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of

His Excellency the Governor,

INTRODUCTION.

Principles to be observed.

147

99

The conditions which should govern any enquiry into the best means of disposing of the garbage and refuse of cities and towns are stated below in their relative order of importance.

A. The health of the city being the first consideration, the most efficient (ie., sanitary) method of disposal should be adopted irrespective of cost.

B. Such method should cause no danger or inconvenience to the neighbourhood to which the refuse is removed.

C. Consistent with efficiency, such method should be as economical as possible-

(i) In initial outlay.

(ii) In annual recurrent expenditure.

D. Consistent with efficient destruction, the best means should be followed of utilizing any valuable products the refuse may contain, in order to minimize, as far as possible, the cost of disposal.

Collection of Refuse.

This report in no way attempts to deal with the method of collecting the refuse, nor with the cost of such collection, but it is assumed that the cost will be practically the same, whether the refuse. be taken, as at present, to dust boats stationed at various places along the Praya wall, or whether it be taken in the dust carts to a Refuse Destructor which may be erected on the outskirts of the City.

Past and Present Procedure.

Until within recent years, a most common method adopted by cities and towns for disposing of their refuse was that of dumping it upon a piece of waste ground selected as near to the town as pos- sible. Towns on the seaboard sometimes adopted an alternative plan of barging the refuse to a place at sea, where it could be dumped without risk of being washed back on to the foreshore.

The first method was followed in Hongkong for many years, the refuse being dumped at Belcher's Bay on a foreshore which has since been reclaimed, and is now a part of the City of Victoria, viz., Kennedy Town. This dumping ground having become unsuitable, another place was found on the Chinese mainland, where dumping was allowed under certain conditions. It appears that these condi- tions have been infringed and hence the present enquiry and report.

Dumping the refuse on the mainland embraces the disadvantages of both the above methods, and, although preferable to dumping close to the City, is still unsatisfactory.

METHODS OF DISPOSAL. Dumping Grounds.

"From a report made by Professor BURDON SANDERSON, M.D., and the late Professor PARKES, M.D., on the 'Sanitary Condition of Liverpool' (I quote from Knight's "Annoted Model Bye-Laws ") experi- ments having for their object to ascertain what the effect of time had been on the organic matters which, together with cinder refuse, had been used to fill up inequalities in the ground tended to shew that 'the process of decay of all the most easily destructible matters,' including vegetable refuse, 'is com- pleted in three years. If this be so it follows that a dumping ground will constitute a danger to health for three years after the last load has been dumped.

The dumping ground for Hongkong is on the mainland and well removed from the Island, but there is such close communication between the Colony and the mainland, that any disease breaking out on the latter would be quickly conveyed to the Colony. Any action therefore of the Colony, which may produce a breeding ground for disease, cannot fail to affect it detrimentally.

It is difficult to say at what time the refuse becomes really dangerous to health, but it would be wise to provide means which would ensure that all refuse be removed from the City within twenty-four hours of collection, and that it be not afterwards disturbed until it has been rendered harmless.

Removal within twenty-four hours is, I believe, effected at the present time, but the system is liable to disarrangement from wind, storms and tide.

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