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Following is a question by the Hon Lau Kong-wah and a written reply by the Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works, Dr Sarah Liao, at the Legislative Council meeting today (November 10):
Question:
With regard to the disposal of waste paper, will the Government inform this Council of:
(a) the quantity of waste paper disposed of in each of the past three years, and the quantity and percentage of such waste paper which originated from government departments;
(b) the respective quantities of waste paper disposed of by dumping at landfill sites as well as by other means in each of the past three years, and the respective percentages of such waste paper among all the waste paper disposed of; and
(c) the measures in place to encourage the public to use less paper and to separate wastes to facilitate recovery of waste paper for recycling?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) According to the figures provided by Environmental Protection Department (EPD), the amount of waste paper disposed of in the past three years were -
Year Quantity of waste paper disposed
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2001 1,638,000 tonnes
2002 1,630,000 tonnes
2003 1,639,000 tonnes
Table 1 : Total quantity of waste paper disposed
The Government does not collect data on the amount of waste paper being disposed by each department. However, nearly all government departments have adopted measures to recover waste paper for recycling which were collected by contractors recognised by Government Logistics Department (GLD). According to figures provided by these contractors, the quantity of waste paper recovered from government departments for recycling by recyclers in the past three years are as follows:
Quantity of As a
waste paper Quantity of Total percentage
collected waste paper quantity of the total
from collected of waste quantity of
Printing from other paper waste paper
Year Department departments recycled disposed
**** ************ *********** ************ ********
2001 1,307 tonnes 3,051 tonnes* 4,358 tonnes 0.27%
2002 1,193 tonnes 3,019 tonnes* 4,212 tonnes 0.26%
2003 1,092 tonnes 2,290 tonnes 3,382 tonnes 0.21%
Table 2 : Quantity of waste paper recovered by government departments for recycling
* Since the collection of data was not systematised, the figures for 2001 and 2002 are estimated figures.
In the past few years, government departments have been actively adopting various measures to reduce paper consumption and to reuse paper, therefore the quantity of waste paper generated is on a declining trend.
(b) There are only two ways to dispose waste paper, either disposing it at landfills or recovering it for recycling. The quantity of paper being disposed by means of these two ways for the past three years are :
Disposed at landfills Recovered for recycling
As a As a
percentage percentage
of total of total
quantity quantity
of waste of waste
paper paper
Year Weight disposed Weight disposed
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2001 838,000 tonnes 51% 800,000 tonnes 49%
2002 867,000 tonnes 53% 763,000 tonnes 47%
2003 857,000 tonnes 52% 782,000 tonnes 48%
Table 3 : The percentage of waste paper disposed at landfills and recovered for recycling.
Most of the waste paper disposed at landfills are contaminated waste paper mixed with other domestic waste. Therefore, they are not suitable for recycling.
(C) To encourage the public to reduce paper and other wastes, the Government has been promoting waste prevention and recovery through a series of publicity and public education programmes.
Since the Environmental Campaign Committee was established in 1990, it organises various activities every year to promote public awareness of environmental issues, including World Environment Day, Environmental Protection Festival, Green School Award, Hong Kong Eco-Business Award etc.. It also organises waste recovery activities jointly with community groups to encourage the public to reduce waste and separate recyclables for recovery. Besides, the Government injected $100 million to the Environment and Conservation Fund in 2002, mainly to provide funding support for community groups and green groups to initiate recycling projects in the communities.
Regarding promotion of recovery of waste paper and other recyclables, the Government has already placed over 27,000 waste separation bins throughout the territory to encourage public participation in waste separation and recovery. The waste separation bins are placed at public places and housing estates, with about 70 per cent of the population participating. Apart from placing waste separation bins, the Government have been testing out various forms of waste separation and recovery with a view to identifying the modes that are more convenient to the public, cost-effective and best suit the local needs. This August, EPD launched the "Pilot Programme on Source Separation of Waste" in 13 estates in the Eastern District, involving some 37,000 households with a population of about 120,000. The objectives of the pilot programme are to assist residents to separate waste at source by providing waste separation facilities on each floor of a building, and to broaden the types of recyclables recovered in order to further enhance the recovery rate and reduce waste. The Government is planning to expand the scope of the programme to encourage more residents to participate in separating waste at source for recycling.
Ends/Wednesday, November 10, 2004
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