Solid Waste in Hk

Waste is a common environmental impact of developed societies. Especially when people can afford greater convenience and more purchases, they tend to throw away more rubbish. And Hong Kong is no exception to this. Similar to many developed places, our waste loads grow as its economy grow. Hong Kong generates different types of solid waste. To handle it well, we used to categorize and separate the type of waste. In waste water treatment, we simply separate the pollution as municipal waste (more polluted) and runoff(less polluted). But in solid waste, we define it as three types of waste that is more detail then water. They are Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), Construction Waste and Special Waste. We defined these wastes by their properties.

The figure shows that we have successfully reduce the total solid waste in recent year, but the MSW has been dominated among the total waste. Before the discussion of the policy or strategy which focuses on reducing MSW, we should first understand what MSW is. There are three types of MSW, named as Domestic waste (e.g. Households and public areas, residential buildings, litter bins, marine areas and country parks.), Commercial waste (e.g. Restaurants, hotels, offices and markets in private housing estates.) and Industrial waste( e.g. generated by all industries, but does not include construction and demolition waste, chemical waste) (HKG,2013)
Due to some successful policy and regulation, Construction waste, which mainly comes from renovation, demolition, land excavation and road works, has been reduced among this 10year. Construction waste can be separated into Non-inert construction waste and inert construction waste. Some of the non-inert construction waste can be recycled like bamboo while some inert constructions waste like bitumen and concrete and used as some land formation. However, the construction waste are more likely to go landfill.
The rest is Special waste like waster sludge, livestock waste and some chemical which specified under the Waste Disposal (Chemical Waste) (General) Regulation (EPD, 2012).
Due to the different properties of waste, EPD mainly has three kinds of facilities for collecting, transferring, treating and disposing the waste. They are Strategic Landfill, Refuse transfer station and Chemical Waste Treatment Centre. It seems that there is only little way to handle the solid waste and most of the loads go to landfill. It is because construction waste and MSW are dominant and the landfill is the only way to treat them in present. In addition, our existing landfills site will be full of load if no alleviation works is done at 2019(Time out, 2012). Therefore the Environmental Protection Department has placed a high priority on promoting waste reduction and recycling and tries to identify the new landfill sites. However, the community has become more resistant to having waste facilities near their neighborhoods. The government has already started to consult the public on the options. Other than identifying new landfill, HKG has published A Policy Framework for the Management of MSW which is a guideline or direction that point out the solid waste problem and handle in three approaches. They are Tackling the Problem at Source, Throw less, Pay less and Community Participation (EDP, 2005) Apart from government, there are some NGO help to relieve this impact. HK awards for environmental excellent has promote The Wastewi$e Label. It is a scheme to encourage Hong Kong businesses / organizations in adopting measures to reduce the amount of waste generated within their services and products they provide. Friends of the Earth (HK) cooperate with government in some recycle action, like the Community Recycling Network. The NGO helps to set up the recycling station and enhance the environmental awareness of HK people and get us involved.

Ref.
(2013). Municipal Solid Waste. Retrieved February 3, 2013 from Hong Kong Goverment, Web site: http://www.gov.hk/en/residents/environment/waste/msw.htm

(2012). Legislation for the Management of Wastes. Retrieved February 5, 2013 from EPD, Web site: http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/laws_regulations/envir_legislation/leg_waste.html
(2012). Are we sinking under the garbage?. Retrieved February 2, 2013 from Time Out, Web site: http://www.timeout.com.hk/big-smog/features/48473/are-we-sinking-under-the-garbage.html
(2005). A Policy Framework for the Management of MSW. Retrieved February 2, 2013 from EPD, Web site: http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/msw/htm_en/content.htm