Watchdog proposes Lantau plant to deal with city's leftovers
The Environmental Protection Department has proposed building an organic-waste treatment plant in North Lantau to divert the city's mounting food waste from shrinking landfill space.
The Siu Ho Wan plant would handle food waste separated and collected from factories and businesses initially, rather than from households.
Initial capacity would be 200 tonnes a day, but officials have not ruled out expanding the plant.
Organic waste would be transported by road to the facility, where it would be turned into organic fertiliser, biogas and waste effluent.
In a report released yesterday, the department said the plant would be located on a 2 hectare waterfront site zoned for waste facilities.
Costing HK$300 million, the plant would be built in 2011 under a 'design, build and operate' contract, and is scheduled to come into operation by 2013. An environmental impact assessment and feasibility study would be carried out next year.
The proposal was announced as environment officials were identifying a site for waste incinerators and finalising details for the municipal solid-waste charging proposals that are subject to public consultation.
The city dumped about 9,279 tonnes of solid waste a day, excluding special and construction waste, at landfills last year.
Nearly 40 per cent of the solid waste was from food waste, with the commercial and industrial sector contributing 772 tonnes, double the figure for 2002. Household food waste accounted for 2,884 tonnes a day.
'The existing practice of landfilling untreated, biodegradable food waste is not sustainable and will pose long-term environmental liabilities for the present and future generations,' the department said.
Poon Chi-sun, chairman of the Waste Subcommittee under the Advisory Council on the Environment, said recycling of non-domestic food waste was more cost-effective than that of households in terms of collection and quality assurance.
'Household waste tends to contain more contaminants and it might lower the quality of the compost, making it difficult to compete with rival products,' he said.
Professor Poon said the Environmental Protection Department had yet to spell out how and who was to finance the facility's operation, and agreed that incentives should be offered to producers to sort and separate waste.
Green Power chief executive Man Chi-sum said the proposal offered huge environmental benefits, even though it was costly to collect the waste. 'It will save at least HK$125 per tonne if we otherwise dump the food waste in landfills, while it can reduce emission of greenhouse gases such as methane in the landfilling process.'
Dr Man said the department should study the effectiveness of the scheme before considering expanding it to cover household waste.
Last year, the department carried out a technical study into a user-pays, waste-sorting scheme asking households to separate waste products and put them into designated plastic bags, but it found some households were reluctant to sort food waste.
