ENG-2007 — Page 329

The Environment 277

level measured in terms of E. coli (the bacterium that can indicate the presence of sewage). The following table shows how beaches were classified in 2007. Beaches in the 'good' and 'fair' categories meet the Government's water quality objective for bathing. In 2007, over 80 per cent of the bathing beaches met the water quality objective.

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 2007

Good

Up to 24

Undetectable

25

Fair

25 to 180

10 or less

9

Poor

181 to 610

11 to 15

7

More than 610

More than 15

0

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

The 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 have 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 2.73 million tonnes. of waste materials including paper, metals and plastic were exported in 2007, generating export earnings of about $6 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 on eight and 12 hectares of land respectively. Lots in Phase I have been let in batches to waste recyclers since April 2007. Phase II will be commissioned in 2009.

To encourage waste reduction, recovery and recycling, the Government launched a territory-wide Source Separation of Domestic Waste Programme in January 2005, following which domestic waste requiring disposal, fell by 4 per cent in 2007, compared to 2006. On the other hand, waste from the commercial and industrial sector continued to increase, rising by 16 per cent in 2007 when compared to 2006. As a result, the Government rolled out a similar programme for the commercial and industrial sectors in October 2007.