1997 — Page 129

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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

In the five years that followed, the methane gas was burned every day. In other words, we were wasting energy resources, but there was nothing we could do because the resources did not have commercial value. Think about it. Methane was burnt day after day. I am sure residents of Sceneway Garden, Laguna City and the vicinity could see it burning. Some energy would have been saved if we used it for heating water, but no, that was not a commercially viable option.

I would like to call on Members not to keep talking about waste recovery. Recovery of waste, or waste paper in particular, makes things more difficult for poor workers. Don't start campaigns to recover waste paper. Let the cleaners who have been doing this continue to collect waste paper. Open your eyes and see what so-called environmental protection campaigns are doing to help. In the school I used to teach at, there was one such campaign. I saw that all members of the school searched the floors for waste paper and some people even took other people's waste from the refuse station to look for paper. What would you think of such a campaign? Each time the Council organizes activities for the committee on environmental protection, greening or keeping Hong Kong clean campaigns, a lot of refuse was left at Victoria Park after the departure of guests. Just look at the trees, plants, paper and timber scattered around after ceremonies and think what would become of them.

I can go on and on. The point I am making is that they are products of capitalism. If we can control or manage these products effectively, we can reduce waste. Think of three newspapers, Oriental Daily News, Apple Daily and Sing Tao Jih Pao. There is a large bundle for Sing Tao on Fridays whereas there are more than 30 pages for Oriental and Apple every day. I wonder how many families that buy these papers read them all. My guess is that some 99% of the words are just not read by the readers. Is it possible at all to restrict the number of pages published? Newspapers are one example only. Take our schools. They have come up with an ingenious way to control the students. If students of day schools are allowed to go out for lunch, there may be the risk of these people smoking, fighting, stealing etc. outside. The discipline master may have to go to police stations or supermarkets to handle cases. So, for administrative convenience and to avoid the above risks, students, especially those of lower Forms 1, 2 and 3, are requested to stay in for lunch. Say for example one foam rubber lunch box per student, imagine what volume of waste is generated each day. There is nothing we can do to improve the situation. I am not advertising, but I know that one fast food chain has recently changed to the use of paper boxes instead. They are better, but still they are waste.

Some Members mentioned power generation for Council use and electric vehicles. They are not worthy of consideration. I want to explain about the depreciation of energy efficiency. For each additional process, there will be over 70% of energy loss. If we use primitive fuel, say gasoline to start a vehicle, we skip one process. If we produce a battery and let the battery power the vehicle...