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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session at the Legislative Council Complex today (June 21):
Reporter: What will the Government do to address the concerns of Tseung Kwan O residents? How is the Government helping to allay their concerns?
Chief Secretary for Administration: We fully realise that amongst the three landfills, the Tseung Kwan O landfill is relatively near to residents. So we are taking quite a number of measures in order to allay the concerns of the residents of Tseung Kwan O. The most important thing, or the most important concern, of the residents in Tseung Kwan O is the odour issue. So we are saying that if the expansion of the Tseung Kwan O landfill is approved, we will confine that landfill to take in only construction waste, so the issue of smell will not be there. And, of course, in order to do this, we need to amend a piece of subsidiary legislation, but we are going one step further to say that before the legislation is amended to restrict the deposit in Tseung Kwan O landfill to construction waste, we will use all sorts of administrative measures, for example requiring our own FEHD (Food and Environmental Hygiene Department) refuse collection vehicles to be rediverted to other landfills so that as far as possible Tseung Kwan O landfill will be taking in only construction waste. And we are also actively and seriously considering a suggestion that perhaps the Tseung Kwan O landfill should not operate on Sundays, so that there will not be so many refuse collection vehicles on Sundays. And after the Tseung Kwan O landfill is confined to construction waste, we estimate that the number of refuse collection vehicles will be reduced from the current 1,000 to 500, so that's a very marked improvement. And, at the end of the day, the expansion in the Tseung Kwan O landfill is the smallest amongst the three, so I hope that we will all give further support to the three landfills because they are all needed in order to enable us to tackle jointly the issue of waste management in Hong Kong.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Friday, June 21, 2013
Issued at HKT 20:01
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