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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Wong Kam-sing, during a media standup session at the "Go Green, Waste Less" Summit today (April 11):
Reporter: Can you please brief us on the recycling fund, like the principles and the reasons behind pushing forward this fund?
Secretary for the Environment: The Government is going to support the recycling industry with a view to reducing the pressure on landfills and also to have support, so that we can implement our waste blueprint that aims to reduce our residual waste within 10 years. The clear objective is to strengthen the operation of the recycling industry in Hong Kong in terms of quality and also quantity of their output. So the overall aim is to reduce the landfill burden. In the recycling trade, there are at least two kinds of key stakeholders: one is the companies concerned and the other is the associations in relation to the trade. Through these stakeholders, we would like to make the best use of our public fund to support the industry. The initial idea is that we would like to have a kind of project-based approach that is up to the stakeholders to make their proposals that would best fit the local situation and to meet our overall aim. That would be two-year based, and we would like to see a reasonable result within a certain time frame and the proposals have to be sustainable in the long run as well.
Initially, we would like to set up a kind of matching fund for the companies and a kind of ceiling up to $5 million per project. For the proposals based on the associations' initiation, we can set a high ceiling, say $10 million per project, because that would benefit a wider coverage of the companies concerned no matter the scale. So there would be different means to strengthen the industries and a wide range of stakeholders, no matter the scale, no matter whether it's about plastics or paper or other recyclables that could be covered. The scheme would be suitable for Hong Kong's situation and also be flexible, and encourage creative proposals.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Friday, April 11, 2014
Issued at HKT 19:35
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