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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Wong Kam-sing, after attending radio programmes on food waste plan and waste management today (February 22):
Reporter: How confident are you in carrying out your plan regarding getting support from lawmakers who are opposing or parties or residents nearby?
Secretary for the Environment: In brief, we are communicating with the concerned members. On the one hand, we are trying our best to put forward various measures under our blueprint, so that we could have a more balanced approach in handling our waste challenges in Hong Kong. At the same time, we are trying to respond to the local concerns. In a paper to the (Legislative Council) Environmental Affairs Panel, we have listed out more than 10 measures to respond to the local concerns in Tseung Kwan O. Similarly for Tuen Mun, we have listed out about six measures to respond to the local concerns. So, through these responses, we would like to get various support from the locals.
Reporter: How are you responding to their concerns? What are the details?
Secretary for the Environment: For instance in Tseung Kwan O, the major concern is about the smell and also similar environmental nuisance, so we have implemented various measures to respond to the smell concern. For instance, we have amended the regulation, so that in future, only construction waste will be delivered to Tseung Kwan O (landfill), so the smell concern at Tseung Kwun O could be really handled. Similarly, there are concerns in traffic and also the air quality, so we are having various measures to improve the air quality and also to reduce the traffic. For instance, after only sending the construction waste to Tseung Kwan O (landfill), the traffic could be reduced by around 500 cars per day, so there would be significant improvements.
Reporter: What about getting the lawmakers' support?
Secretary for the Environment: I think through our communication with them, they understand that the "3+1" proposal is basically for Hong Kong. At the same time, they would like to know more about how we are going to really have progress about our waste blueprint and also how we are going to set up measures to respond to local concerns. So, through all these measures, we would like to get better confidence and support from them.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Saturday, February 22, 2014
Issued at HKT 15:22
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