ENG-2008 — Page 347

The Environment 1 279

Clinical Waste

Upon installation of additional facilities at the Chemical Waste Treatment Centre to receive and dispose of clinical waste and upgrading of the air pollution control system to meet the latest European Union emission standards, the Government will make arrangements for the Centre to receive clinical waste.

Construction Waste

The construction industry generated about 27 580 tonnes of construction waste every day in 2008. Of that, about 90 per cent was suitable for re-use. Our policy has been to maximise the recovery and reuse of inert materials and minimise their disposal at landfills. The construction waste charging scheme introduced in December 2005 provides an economic incentive for reducing construction waste. The Government continues to deliver inert materials to the Mainland for re-use in reclamation projects there.

Large-scale Waste Treatment Facilities

Hong Kong has to deal with a large volume of non-recyclable waste and needs. new state-of-the-art, cost-effective facilities to treat such waste and reduce its volume. A multi-technology approach is needed so that wastes of different nature can be dealt with by the most suitable technology. The Government aims to commission the first phase of large-scale Integrated Waste Management Facilities (IWMF) that will adopt advanced incineration as its core technology in the mid- 2010s. The Government will also develop Organic Waste Treatment Facilities (OWTF) to treat source-separated organic waste such as food waste and turn it into useful resources. It plans to commission the first phase of OWTF before mid-2010s. However, even with such facilities, residual waste will still need to be disposed of at landfills.

Import and Export of Waste

Import and export of waste are regulated by a permit system under the Waste Disposal Ordinance (WDO). The control is in line with the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, which adopts a prior informed consent procedure for shipments of controlled waste. To support the Basel Ban, an initiative of the Basel Convention to curb the export of hazardous waste from developed countries to developing countries, the EPD has ceased issuing import permits for controlled waste from the developed countries since 1998. This ban arrangement was also incorporated in the WDO in April 2006.

In 2000, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the HKSAR and the Mainland to strengthen the control of hazardous waste movements between the two places. The MoU was subsequently renamed 'Co-operation Arrangement on Control of Waste Movements between the Mainland and HKSAR' in November 2007.

In 2008, 110 prosecutions related to illegal waste import and export activities. were completed, with the imposition of fines totalling about $1.2 million and imprisonment sentences of between two and five months. Most of the offences