ENG-2006 — Page 353

The Environment I 289

Beach water quality ranking

Bathing season geometric mean

of E. coli count per 100ml of beach water

Minor health risk

cases per 1 000 swimmers

Number of beaches in 2006

Good

Up to 24

Undetectable

22

Fair

25 to 180

10 or less

12

Poor

181 to 610

11 to 15

5

More than 610

More than 15

2

Very Poor

Beach water quality gradings for open beaches are available on the EPD's home page, hotline and weekly press releases.

Waste Management

Waste Reduction

'A Policy Framework for the Management of Municipal Solid Waste (2005-2014)' published in 2005 sets out the strategy and measures to address the municipal solid waste problem in Hong Kong over the next decade and proposes simple yet effective economic tools that will create incentives for the community to recycle more and discard less.

Waste reduction and recovery has always played an important role in waste management, resulting in the export of substantial quantities of recovered waste materials for re-manufacturing outside Hong Kong. In all, about 2.7 million tonnes of waste materials — including paper, metals and plastic were exported in 2006, generating export earnings of about $5.3 billion.

The Government is also promoting local recycling, with the development of a 20-hectare EcoPark in Tuen Mun Area 38 for exclusive use by the recycling and environmental industry. The EcoPark is being developed in two phases with eight and 12 hectares of land respectively. The first batch of lots in Phase I was made available for leasing in December 2006. Phase II will be commissioned in 2009.

To encourage waste reduction, the Government also aims to implement the polluter pays principle through solid waste disposal

waste disposal charges and producer responsibility schemes (PRS). To this end, a trial scheme was launched in November 2006 to examine the logistical arrangement for municipal solid waste charging. The Government has also commissioned consultancy studies on the PRS on plastic shopping bags, vehicle tyres and waste electrical and electronic equipment. The study on the PRS on plastic shopping bags has been completed, and the Government will put forward a detailed proposal shortly.

Landfills

All municipal solid waste is disposed of at three large modern landfills in the New Territories, which are operated to high environmental standards.