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Press Release
Charges for disposal of chemical waste at Chemical Waste Treatment Centre to be revised
The Environmental Protection Department (EPD) proposes to revise the existing charges under the Waste Disposal Ordinance.
An EPD spokesman said today (June 29) that the charges for the disposal of chemical waste at the Chemical Waste Treatment Centre (CWTC) were set out in Schedules 1 and 2 to the Waste Disposal (Charges for Disposal of Chemical Waste) Regulation.
"Such charges are payable to the Government for the use of the CWTC for the purpose of disposal of chemical waste," he said.
After gazettal today, the Amendment Regulation will be tabled at the Legislative Council next Wednesday (July 4).
The spokesman said that the charge revision for disposal of normal chemical waste under Schedule 1 was to meet the objective of achieving full recovery of the variable operating cost (VOC) for providing the service.
"The charges were last revised in the 1997/98 financial year. A fee review exercise showed that in accordance with the polluter-pays principle, the charges under Schedule 1 need to be increased to enable a full recovery of the VOC for providing the service," he added.
"The adjustment of the charges to achieve full recovery of the VOC under Schedule 1 will be phased over a period of four years in order to avoid a sudden large one-off increase," the spokesman said.
As to the charges for the disposal of special chemical waste under Schedule 2 such as those containing expired or off-specification chemical substances and damaged chemicals, he said that full VOC recovery rate had already applied and the charges were revised downwards according to the movement of Consumer Price Index (B).
The spokesman said that the Government would still have to bear the fixed operating cost, the capital cost and the administrative cost in providing this service.
The revised charges are scheduled for implementation on November 9, 2007.
Ends/Friday, June 29, 2007
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