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The Forum on Source Separation of Waste cum Award Presentation Ceremony was held today (August 14) jointly by the Environmental Protection Department and the Hong Kong Association of Property Management Companies Ltd.
Officiating at the opening ceremony, Permanent Secretary for the Environment and Director of Environmental Protection Ms Anissa Wong said she was pleased to see the active participation of property management companies and the positive response from housing estates participating in the territory-wide programme on source separation of domestic waste.
Since its launch in January 2005, more than 650 housing estates have signed up to join the Source Separation of Domestic Waste (SSDW) Programme, covering 840,000 households and a population of 2.5 million, representing 36% of the population.
Ms Wong said Hong Kong was facing an imminent waste problem and she appealed to everyone in the community to help reduce, reuse and recycle more waste.
The SSDW Programme seeks to make it as convenient as possible for public participation in waste recovery by promoting floor-based facilities where residents can conveniently drop off their separated waste. It also broadens the types of recyclables collected significantly so that more materials can be recycled or reused.
"Our target is to have 80% of the population participating in the programme by 2010. Through source separation and other measures contained in the 'Policy Framework for the Management of Municipal Solid Waste (2005-2014)', we aim to increase domestic waste recovery rate from 16% in 2005 to 26% by 2012," Ms Wong said.
"With the active participation and support from the trade and the public, the programme has achieved encouraging results. Last year, we achieved the domestic waste recovery rate of 20% while the domestic waste loads have continued to drop, with a decrease of 3% from 2005 to 2006," she said.
At the ceremony, Ms Wong commended the housing estates winning awards in the Competition on Source Separation of Domestic Waste 2006-07 for demonstrating outstanding performance in waste reduction and recovery as well as innovation in designing and setting up waste separation facilities on each building floor.
Ms Wong announced the launch of the annual report 2006 for the Source Separation of Domestic Waste Programme.
The report lists the objectives and summarises the achievements of the SSDW programme and give details of cases of model housing estates in implementing measures in separation of domestic waste.
Details of the report have been uploaded to the EPD's homepage (www.epd.gov.hk) for download.
Ends/Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Issued at HKT 15:08
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