ENG-1995 — Page 456

THE ENVIRONMENT

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business operations of industrial and commercial establishments, which will in turn provide an incentive for them to reduce their pollution.

Landfills

Most municipal solid waste is currently disposed of at landfills. Two old landfills at Tseung Kwan O and Shuen Wan were closed in 1995 while the remaining landfill at Pillar Point Valley will also be phased out soon. Three state-of-the-art, large landfills in remote areas of the New Territories will provide adequate capacity for the disposal of solid waste for the next 20 years. The West New Territories, Southeast New Territories and Northeast New Territories landfills were commissioned in 1993, 1994 and 1995 respectively and are being developed by specialist waste management con- tractors to high environmental standards.

Rapid development in the territory has seen the amount of construction waste arriving at landfills increase dramatically. Some 14 800 tonnes of such waste were created every day during 1995. Since much of the construction waste delivered to landfills could be re-used, contractors were encouraged to sort their waste for reuse before disposal at landfills. A sorting plant was set up at the Southeast New Territories Landfill in 1995 to identify reusable waste.

Hong Kong's 13 old landfills are polluting the environment by the decomposition of refuse and the production of large quantities of a highly polluting liquid called leachate plus gases (mainly methane and carbon dioxide) which may become explosive. These landfills will be restored in phases and some gas control facilities are already operational at the Sai Tso Wan and Shuen Wan Landfills. Full restoration of the sites is planned and they may be used for alternative beneficial purposes.

The government plans to apply the 'polluter pays' principle and recover the cost of providing landfills by charging for all commercial, industrial and construction waste disposed of at landfills by private waste collectors.

Refuse Transfer Stations

A network of refuse transfer stations is being developed. Waste collected in urban centres will be delivered to these stations for compaction into sealed containers and then taken to the three remote landfills. Transfer stations at Kowloon Bay, Island East and Sha Tin currently handle a total of about 3 850 tonnes of refuse every day. A contract was signed in 1995 to build an underground transfer station at the western end of Hong Kong Island. It will be operational in 1997 and together with the Island East station will be capable of handling all the waste generated on Hong Kong Island. Tenders have been invited for stations in West Kowloon and North Lantau. Plans are well advanced for stations to serve the Northwest New Territories and the outlying islands.

Chemical and Special Wastes

The chemical waste treatment centre has been in service since April 1993. Each day it collects and treats about 260 tonnes of chemical waste generated by some 10 750 waste producers.

The centre's running costs will be recovered from its users through a direct-charging scheme. After full consultation with the industries affected, the charging scheme came