ENG-1996 — Page 484

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THE ENVIRONMENT

being formulated to minimise waste generation and reduce the amount of waste that requires land filling.

Sewerage Master Plans

The Sewerage Master Plan studies identified works estimated to cost a total of $9.5 billion required to bring the sewers up to standard in a phased improvement programme.

Sewerage work in southern Hong Kong island is completed, with a treatment works in a rock cavern at Stanley, the first such works in Asia. Improvements at Shek O are well under way, as are works in several parts of Kowloon. Significant progress is being made in providing sewerage to the villages around Tolo Harbour in order to complement the improvements already made to the water quality by such schemes as the diversion of treated effluent from the Sha Tin and Tai Po sewage treatment works to Victoria Harbour and livestock waste controls.

Treatment and disposal for the main urban area

The construction of the chemically enhanced primary treatment works at Stonecutters Island continued and a pilot plant was built and run to determine the most suitable chemicals and their optimum dosage rates and to ascertain whether disinfection would be technically feasible for the effluent from that works.

A two-year comprehensive EIA started in May 1996 with work undertaken by a joint Hong Kong-People's Republic of China consortium. This will assess the options for further stages of the Strategic Sewage Disposal Scheme.

Sewage charges

Sewage charges have been introduced with a basic charge for all users of water who discharge to public sewers, plus a Trade Effluent Surcharge (TES) payable by trades and industries whose effluent strength exceeds that of domestic sewage. A review has now started to allow refinements to the Trade Effluent Surcharge scheme and this will report in early 1997. Only operation and maintenance costs are paid out of charges and government continues to provide funds for capital costs. Household sewage charges are therefore modest at an average of about HK$40 per person per year.

Landfills

Most municipal solid waste is currently disposed of at three state-of-the-art, large landfills in the New Territories which will provide adequate capacity for the disposal of solid waste up to the year 2012. These landfills are being developed by specialist waste management contractors to high environmental standards.

Rapid development in the territory over the past decade has contributed to the dramatic increase in the amount of construction and demolition waste requiring disposal. Some 30 000 tonnes of such waste were generated every day during 1996. Since much of the construction waste delivered to landfills could be reused, contractors are encouraged to segregate and sort their waste at source before disposal. A sorting requirement has been specified in all demolition projects of the Housing Department. About 7 500 tonnes out of the 30 000 tonnes were disposed of at landfills every day. The rest was delivered to public dumps for land reclamation.