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Following is a question by the Hon Choy So-yuk and a reply by the Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works, Dr Sarah Liao, in the Legislative Council meeting today (October 22) :

Question

At present, the Government provides waste separation bins of three different colours in public places to recover plastic bottles, aluminium cans and waste papers respectively. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) of the amount of public money spent so far on the waste recovery scheme (with a breakdown of the costs of recovery bins, the fees payable to transport companies and recyclable waste collectors, etc.);

(b) of the respective weights of the different types of materials recovered through the scheme so far;

(c) of the unit cost of recovery (i.e. the ratio between the amount of funding granted and the weight of the recovered materials) of each type of recovered materials, and the market price per tonne of the materials recovered, broken down by type of materials recovered; and

(d) whether the recovered materials mentioned above have been offered for sale in the market; if so, of the revenue so generated by the authorities; if not, how the authorities have disposed of the materials recovered?

Reply

Madam President,

(a) The amount of public money that has so far been spent on the waste separation bin system is set out below:

Year        Cost of Procuring     Cost of the recyclables
             Waste Separation Bins   collection services
 2000/01     $4 million              $0.64 million/year
             (cumulative figure  
              from 1998 to 2001)          
 2001/02     $2.5 million            $1.83 million/year
 2002/03     $4.5 million            $2.97 million/year
 2003/04     Nil                     $4.15 million/year

It must be noted that the collection services mentioned in the table above only covers the bins which are placed in schools and public venues. These bins account for about 30 per cent of all the waste separation bins in the territory, and they produce less than one per cent of all the recovered materials. We believe these bins have lower yield because of the presence of scavenging activities.

(b) The amounts of waste paper, aluminium cans and plastic bottles collected from the waste separation bins since 2000/01 are set out below.

Year      Waste paper   Aluminium Cans   Plastic Bottles
             (tonnes)    (tonnes)         (tonnes)
 2000/01      106,000    1,900             960
 2001/02      116,600    4,300             870
 2002/03      142,700    6,800             1,400

The above amounts have not included the recyclable materials that were taken away by scavengers.

(c) As the collection service covers all three types of recyclables, it is not possible to provide the unit cost for each type of materials. The unit recurrent cost for recovering the materials as a whole is about $27 per tonne.

The market price of recyclable materials fluctuates from time to time, and is also dependent on the quantity and quality of the materials. Generally, we understand that the current market price of waste paper is $600-800 per tonne, that of aluminum cans is $3,500-4,000 per tonne, and that of plastic bottles is $300-500 per tonne.

(d) For the recyclables collected from public venues and schools, the collection contractors are required to sell them to recyclers, and they can retain the revenue generated from the sale of the recyclables. The contract prices of the collection services have already reflected such revenue. For public housing estates, the cleansing contractors can retain the revenue generated from the sale of recyclables. The contract prices of the cleansing services have reflected such revenue.

Ends/Wednesday, October 22, 2003

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