Lai See | Buried treasure a waste when we can sell it to the Europeans

Rubbish - or municipal solid waste (MSW) as we should call it - appears to be the latest subject to acquire political distinction. Now we have Chief Executive C.Y. Leung and Chief Secretary Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor bemoaning the Legislative Council's reluctance to expand the landfills.

The expansions are vital, we are told, or we'll have rubbish piling up on the streets. But is it really so vital to expand the landfills? One alternative which we haven't heard discussed is the possibility of selling the waste. In Europe there are a number of countries that are wedded to waste-to-energy incinerators.

However, several countries have built too many incinerators and are struggling to find enough MSW to fuel them. Oslo imports rubbish from all over Europe, including Ireland, parts of Britain and Sweden. Incineration provides Oslo with heating and electricity. Northern Europe produces about 150 million tonnes of waste a year but has an incineration capacity of about 700 million tonnes.

Waste is seen as a commodity in Europe. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong we bury it. The government should sell it or let market forces come into play and offload it to the highest bidder, who can then sell it to the Europeans.

It being such a hot topic we cannot resist the urge to write more about MSW. It is instructive to take another look at the Legislative Council panel on the environment's observations on waste management. At a panel meeting in April last year, members said they were opposed to "the reliance on landfills for waste disposal in the view of the associated environmental nuisance, as well as the long lead time and cost incurred from restoration of landfills". They went on to stress the need for a holistic package, "of waste management measures (including waste reduction, separation and recycling) with waste incineration as a last resort". Clearly not much has changed over the past year.