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The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Anson Chan, today (Monday) appealed to the community, including the business sector, to work in partnership with the government in building a better environment.

Noting that public awareness on the need to protect the environment was on a rise, Mrs Chan said the government would take the lead in building a constructive partnership between the government and the community.

"Concern for the environment, and understanding of the need for greater partnership to develop a more sustainable Hong Kong is now taking centre stage," she said, adding that Chief Executive had just placed the environment at the heart of his Policy Address last week.

"We welcome this rising interest and we will do all in our power to guide that interest into effective and constructive partnership between the Government, business and community to create in Hong Kong an environment in which we can all be proud of," she said.

Mrs Chan was addressing the opening ceremony for the first batch of restored landfills held at the former Shuen Wan Landfill where work has been completed to collect and treat the polluting leachate from entering Tolo Harbour, as well as collecting and using landfill gas for use as energy.

The completed site also includes a golf driving range, which is the first recreational facility to be built on a restored landfill in Hong Kong.

She expressed her appreciation for the work done under the Environmental Protection Department's Landfill Restoration Programme, which she said had not only turned derelict waste dump into a valuable resource for use by the community, but also helped to protect public health and the environment.

"The $2.3 billion investment in restoration projects is removing the potential hazards from old landfills. Treating the leachate from this landfill, for example, helps to restore the water quality and ecology in Tolo Harbour," she said.

Mrs Chan commended the Hong Kong Landfill Restoration Group, the Hong Kong and China Gas Company, Regional Services Department and the EPD for setting an example of Government-business partnership by participating in the restoration, landfill gas utilisation and afteruse projects.

"It is the first time we have extracted and used landfill gas on a commercial scale, capable of delivering one million megajoules per day as heating fuel. This reduces our use of fossil fuel and helps reduce the greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere," she said.

Mrs Chan noted that Hong Kong is spending some $800 million every year to dispose of six million tonnes of waste in landfills, and the amount of waste and the costs involved were still rising.

"This is an enormous burden to the community and a threat to our environment. We must reverse the rising tide of waste."

The Government will introduce fresh proposals next year to deter unnecessary dumping in our landfills and to provide economic incentives for waste reduction and recycling, she said.

"We will introduce waste bulk reduction facilities such as waste-to-energy incinerators. We are finalising a feasibility study which has carefully scrutinised the environmental impacts. We aim to commission the first incinerator by 2007.

"We are now examining whether we can establish a permanent recycling park at Pillar Point Valley Landfill when its restoration work is completed in 2004," she said.

With these, and other measures, Mrs Chan said, the government aimed to reduce the amount of waste produced, increase the extent of recycling, divert waste away from the landfills and extend landfill life.

After the opening ceremony, Mrs Chan toured the gas utilisation plant and the new golf driving range at the restored landfill in Shuen Wan.

The Shuen Wan Landfill is the first closed landfill restored to meet the latest environmental standards in Hong Kong.

There are altogether 13 closed landfills in Hong Kong. Eight of them, including Shuen Wan Landfill, Urban Landfills (five small landfills in East Kowloon) and two Tseung Kwan O Landfills, have already been restored.

The restoration work of the other four landfills in North West New Territories and Gin Drinker's Bay are underway and are scheduled for completion by mid-2000. The remaining one, in Pillar Point Valley, is scheduled to commence by 2002.

End/Monday, October 11, 1999

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