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New
waste facility for North Lantau and the airport
The chairman
of a high-level coordinating committee on the Government's
waste reduction programme today (Friday) appealed to the Hong
Kong community, including businessmen and politicians, to
support the Government in protecting the environment.
"In reality, we are all contributing to environmental
degradation," said Mr Barrie Cook, Chairman of the Waste
Reduction Committee set up last month to help the Government
devise, coordinate and focus on measures set out in the Waste
Reduction Framework Plan, a ten-year programme launched in
November 1998.
"The
road to improvement lies not only with government, although
they need to give the leadership, but with the business community,
the politicians and above all the general public," he
said.
Mr Cook
was addressing the opening ceremony of the North Lantau Refuse
Transfer Station. He said the framework plan would be implemented
with emphasis on reduction and recycling rather than disposal.
The early implementation of landfill charges was clearly a
priority, he added.
The new
station, the seventh and latest operational refuse transfer
station, is located at Siu Ho Wan on North Lantau Island.
It was built at a capital cost of $238 million and will have
an annual operation cost of about $35 million.
The Station
has a capacity to process 650 tonnes of waste per day and
can easily be expanded to an ultimate capacity of 1200 tonnes
per day if required. It will handle the waste generated from
the Hong Kong International Airport and the developments on
the northern shore of Lantau Island, including Tung Chung
New Town.
The Director
of Environmental Protection, Mr Rob Law, said at the ceremony
that this Station had been designed to cater for the needs
of the expanding community on North Lantau, both the public
and private sectors.
"By
encouraging our customers, such as the Airport Authority,
to recycle their waste before disposal, we can achieve a win-win
situation for our customers and ourselves, because they can
lower their waste management costs and we can preserve the
dwindling capacity of our landfills," Mr Law said.
All wastes
received at this Station will be compacted into specially
gasket sealed containers and transported by a purpose-built
container vessel, named "North Lantau", to the West
New Territories Landfill at Nim Wan for final disposal. The
Station operates from 7:00 am to 11:00 pm every day of the
year.
Like other
waste facilities in Hong Kong, the new refuse transfer station
is developed under a "design, build and operate"
contract arrangement. The Contractor, Ecoserve Limited, is
responsible for operating the Station for 15 years and its
operation will be closely monitored in accordance with very
stringent environmental standards.
It is
one of the refuse transfer stations which are providing a
disposal service to the private waste collectors under the
Refuse Transfer Station charging scheme. Private waste collectors
using this service will pay a charge based on the weight of
waste delivered to the Station.
End/Friday,
March 26, 1999
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