Hong Kong's day as a manufacturing hub may be over, but it is still leading the world in producing one thing - refuse.
Last year, the city generated 6.45 million tonnes of rubbish, more than double the amount two decades ago. Translated into a per capita figure, each of its seven million people produced 921 kilograms of municipal solid waste - refuse excluding construction and hazardous waste.
That made Hong Kong the most wasteful place in the world - it was 91kg more per capita than Norway, which topped a list of 30 economies surveyed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) last year. On average, Hong Kong people produced more than twice as much rubbish as those in Japan (410kg) and South Korea (380kg).
But to the bureaucrats, every cloud has a silver lining.
Speaking to legislators last week, Edward Yau Tang-wah, secretary for the environment, said the increase was a natural outcome of economic activities, population growth and the arrival of millions of tourists.
'Despite the rise in waste generation ... the waste dumped in landfill has been decreasing,' Yau said.
Hong Kong dumped 3.27 million tonnes of waste in landfills last year, a 1.3 per cent drop from 2008. Government officials hailed the decline as the result of 'years of effort in promoting waste separation'.