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The Environment
Livestock Waste Pollution
The Waste Disposal Ordinance bans the keeping of livestock in new towns and environmentally sensitive areas. Where they are allowed, livestock farms must have proper waste treatment systems. The Government provides a free livestock waste collection service which collected about 22,000 tonnes of waste in 2012.
From the environmental protection perspective, livestock farming in urbanised Hong Kong is not sustainable in the long term. To address the problem, the Government introduced voluntary licence-surrender schemes in 2005 and 2006 to encourage respectively poultry and pig farmers to cease livestock farming permanently, in return for ex gratia payments. The schemes have decreased the number of pig and poultry farms and reduced the pollution load. on the environment. The number of poultry farms has been further reduced by a buyout scheme launched in 2008.
Bathing Beaches
To protect the health of swimmers at bathing beaches, the Government adopts strict standards for water quality control which indicate the pollution level measured in terms of E coli (the bacterium that can indicate the presence of sewage). Beaches in the 'good' and 'fair' categories in the following table meet the Government's water quality objective for bathing, and all did in 2012.
Beach water quality ranking
Bathing season geometric mean of
E coli count per 100ml
of beach water
Minor health risk
Number of beaches
cases per 1,000 swimmers
in 2012
Good
Up to 24
Undetectable
23
Fair
25 to 180
10 or less
18
Poor
181 to 610
11 to 15
0
Very Poor
More than 610
More than 15
0
In addition, beach water quality gradings to denote the recent water quality of open beaches are available on the EPD's website and hotline as well as through 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 and proposes effective economic tools that will create incentives for the community to recycle more and discard less. In 2012, the Government reaffirmed the importance of waste avoidance and reduction in its comprehensive strategy for the management of municipal solid
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