ENG-1999 — Page 474

THE ENVIRONMENT

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should be delivered to public filling areas or public fill barging points. Only prescribed material unsuitable for reclamation purposes should be sent to the landfills.

Hong Kong has 13 old landfills, none of which had adequate environmental protection measures before closing. Landfill gas and liquid leachate, the natural decay products of organic waste, are continuously released and do great harm to the environment. For safety and environmental reasons, the Government is now restoring these landfills. Restoration of seven of them is complete. Apart from the Pillar Point Valley landfill (PPVL), which was closed only in 1997, all the remaining landfills will be restored by the end of 2000. It is intended to restore the PPVL by 2003. After full restoration, the sites may be used for community activities such as passive and active recreation.

Refuse Transfer Stations

An important component of the Government's waste disposal plan is the network of refuse transfer stations. Waste collected in urban centres is delivered to these stations, where it is compacted into sealed containers for delivery to the three strategic landfills.

Six modern transfer stations and one set of Outlying Island Transfer Facilities handle a total of 5 100 tonnes of waste every day. This is mostly domestic waste, and represents more than 68 per cent of Hong Kong's total daily domestic waste production. Three transfer stations, at Hong Kong Island East, West Kowloon and North Lantau, have extended their service to private waste collectors. Other stations are expected to follow later.

Chemical and Special Wastes

Comprehensive controls on the handling and disposal of chemical waste have been in place since 1993. The formerly widespread malpractice of dumping chemical waste into the sewers and surface waters has stopped. All chemical waste producers must properly pack, label and store their chemical wastes before disposal at proper treatment facilities. A trip ticket system, involving the waste producers, licensed collectors and licensed disposal points, tracks the movement of chemical waste from its origin to final disposal.

Each day, 170 tonnes of chemical waste including waste from sea-going vessels are treated at the Chemical Waste Treatment Centre (CWTC) on Tsing Yi Island. A government contractor operates the CWTC, the main treatment facility for chemical waste. Waste producers using CWTC services are required to pay part of the treatment cost. Increasingly, more and more waste producers have adopted clean technologies to minimise their wastes to cut their treatment costs.

Incineration

Some chemical wastes are already incinerated at the CWTC. It is intended that clinical wastes will also be disposed of at the CWTC starting from 2002. The Government plans to develop incineration facilities for the disposal of municipal waste, clinical waste, sewage sludge from the sewage treatment plants, and animal carcasses. It is intended that these facilities will incorporate the highest possible environmental standards and emission controls. The Government recognises, however, that there are legitimate community concerns about emissions such as