Filling the landfills Every soft-drink can we toss in the trash, each foam lunchbox we hurl in the bin, and just about any other item of waste you care to name end up as companions on a long and smelly journey to their final resting place in Hong Kong's three landfills.

According to the EPD, the average piece of rubbish travels more than 50 kilometres on an epic voyage that includes trucks, crushers and ships. The city's bins are emptied, usually once a day, into the lumbering orange trucks operated by the Urban Services Department and the Regional Services Department. Each truck in the fleet of about 400 can carry about five tonnes. When the trucks are full, they deposit their load at one of the seven Refuse Transfer Stations, two of which are on Hong Kong Island, the rest scattered around Kowloon and the New Territories.

At the transfer stations, the garbage is dumped into a container, soaked with water to cut down on dust and crushed to reduce its volume. The stations employ powerful fans to suck away the smells and ease the nostril-searing aroma that plagues those unlucky enough to live within whiffing distance.

Once compacted, each container holds 15 tonnes of rubbish. Most of the Refuse Transfer Stations, which usually work to capacity, can process about 1,000 tonnes a day although the newest - and biggest - at the West Kowloon reclamation area, which opened in August at a cost of $627 million, crunches through a whopping 2,500 tonnes of trash daily. The capacity of this plant removed 'hundreds of waste-delivery trips from the highways every day,' according to the EPD's deputy director, Mike Stokoe.

Then begins a slow journey by sea to one of the three landfills in the west New Territories, near Tai Shui Hang, the northeast New Territories, almost on the border, and the southeast New Territories at Shek Miu Wan, Tseung Kwan O.

Each vessel carries up to 90 containers - enough to add a sizeable lump to the trash mountains with each voyage. From the vessel, it is on to another truck before final dumping ...

At the landfill Hong Kong's three existing landfills, created from Novemeber 1993 to June 1995, cost $6 billion to construct, and in 1997 their combined annual running cost was about $360 million. Before they came into operation, waste was delivered to small landfills and old incinerators, all of which have been phased out.. The current landfills occupy 270 hectares, which, in land-strapped Hong Kong, and even as agricultural land, would be worth $8.2 billion. That's a lot of money to throw garbage all over.

The biggest and busiest of the three is the southeast New Territories landfill, sprawling over more than 100 grungey hectares. Some of it is on reclaimed land; some is a hole blasted to the maximum legal depth of 100 metres. It deals with household waste, plus the bulk of the city's commercial and construction waste. From daybreak until late at night, trucks line up to deposit their loads. Once the garbage is dumped in the landfill, huge bulldozers roar back and forth to pack it down. At night, fresh rubbish is buried under soil or huge tarpaulins to contain the pungent gases which quickly begin to brew. At daybreak, it is 'unpacked' and the process begins again.

The EPD says the landfills are used in sections, each of which takes about four months to fill. Enormous, thick plastic sheets are laid down, like some giant kitchen tidy, to prevent toxic run-off fouling the surrounding earth. When capacity has been reached, the sheet is secured over the rubbish and sealed, then buried under soil. Grass is then planted. Currently, it costs $65 per tonne to dump waste from a private vehicle, although the Government plans to increase the charges to discourage dumping and promote recycling.

Bowen Leung, until recently the Secretary of Planning, Environment and Lands, says the Government is delaying stricter 'polluter-pays' moves because of current economic woes - much to the consternation of green groups.

What happens to a landfill when it can't take any more trash? It is covered with soil and seeded with grass as each section is sealed; later, trees are planted, and eventually the landfill will be turned into a park.

And when the landfills run out? According to an EPD spokesman: 'We are aware of the situation, and it is our plan to investigate whether the capacity of the existing landfills could be extended or a new landfill site would need to be identified. There is no particular site earmarked for new landfill at this stage.' However, extending the capacity of the existing landfills is part of the Government's grand scheme, the ...

WASTE REDUCTION FRAMEWORK PLAN It has taken a while for the formulation of the waste masterplan. And the reaction has not been all favourable. 'It's a joke,' says Ho Wai-chi, executive director of Greenpeace, who believes it does not contain realistic incentives to encourage recycling and deter polluters.

According to the plan's summary, the municipal solid waste (as opposed to the liquid grunge we dump into the sea) we dispose of in landfills every day has risen from 12,500 tonnes in 1989 to 16,000 tonnes in 1997. At this rate, existing landfills will be completely stuffed with smelly, rotting rubbish in 16 years.

The Government boasts of the plan's 'dynamic and environmentally responsible programmes' to extend the useful life of landfills, minimise production of waste, increase recycling (tell that to Concordia Paper, although more of that later), and identify the 'true costs' of waste management.

It identifies household waste as the area requiring the most urgent attention, and according to the plan it seeks 'above all' to change community attitudes to waste. It says it will do this by a range of measures, including: encouraging the public to bring specified, recyclable materials to collection points; changing building regulations (the Government is in the process of amending regulations to require new buildings to devote adequate space to the separation and storage of waste); encouraging environmentally responsible purchasing, grants for material-recovery projects (groups wanting to set up schemes like the provision of material-recovery bins and publicity and education campaigns can apply to the Environment and Conservation Fund for grants); and drawing up land-allocation policies (the Government says it will lease appropriate sites to recycling businesses for up to five years, and says recyclers could be 'co-located' near RTSs and landfills.

Recyclers can apply for land to the Hong Kong Industrial Estates Corporation for land).

The plan's target is to divert for recycling 58 per cent of municipal solid waste, which comprises both commercial and domestic waste, from landfills by 2007. The current amount diverted is 30 per cent.

Steve Barclay, for the Secretary of Planning, Environment and Lands, says the Government is considering waste-to-energy incineration. He says this will reduce the volume of waste substantially, and produce 'modest' amounts of electricity that can be fed into the grid. At present, about 80 per cent of municipal solid waste is combustible, and proven technologies are available to meet stringent air emission standards. To handle all Hong Kong's combustible waste, five million tonnes of incineration capacity a year would be needed. This would allow the landfills to be used for another four years.

The Government believes its plan could cut the annual waste-management bill by $750 million once it is implemented fully, produce up to 260 megawatts of electricity and create jobs.

To serve Hong Kong from 2016 to 2045, another 860 hectares will have to be found for new landfills: that is two-thirds of the area of Chek Lap Kok, or enough land to house Hong Kong's projected population growth for the next decade. The waste going into them costs the Government about $830 a tonne to handle, or about $1.75 billion annually. Public housing tenants pay for only the first step in removing their waste - from flat to refuse collection point. Private owners and tenants usually pay for collection in their management fees - and again, this covers only the first step.

Says the plan: 'The consequence of most of the costs of waste disposal being met out of public revenues is that for many waste producers the cost is insignificant, or even non-existent. There are virtually no incentives for anyone to reduce costs by avoiding the creation of waste, to recycle or re-use waste, or to reduce the volume of material that has to be dumped.

One important facet of the plan is a much bigger role for the private sector in the collection and disposal of waste, which encompasses the ...

SCRAPPING OF THE MUNICIPAL COUNCILS A consultancy report by former Urban Services Department director Albert Lam Chi-chiu recommends setting up an Environment and Food Bureau and a Food and Environmental Hygiene Department from January 1, 2000, when the Urban and Regional Councils are disbanded.

The new department will be responsible for the unlikely combination of waste collection and food standards. The new set-up will employ 18,000 staff, 17,500 of whom will come from the USD and RSD. About 270 staff will be transferred from the Deptartment of Health and a further 131 from Agriculture and Fisheries. The rest of the posts will be scrapped, which is expected to save more than $28 million a year.

Meanwhile, according to the EPD's Mike Stokoe, firms from Hong Kong, France, Germany, Britain, Australia and the United States are lining up to seek private franchises for rubbish collection when the municipal councils are abolished. Some companies are offering a package of rubbish collection and street cleaning, says Stokoe, while an audit report into Regional Services Department refuse-collection services said the department could save from $57 million to $112 million if it contracted out 50 per cent of its services.

WHAT HAPPENS TO RUBBISH IN OTHER COUNTRIES? In 1997, about 33 per cent, by weight, of municipal solid waste was recovered for recycling or reuse. The EPD says in Hong Kong, waste materials are recovered at different points along the waste collection and disposal route. The materials recovered usually have high market values, and the recovery activities operate in the following ways: 1. waste generators (mainly industrial) separate recyclables from their waste and sell the recovered materials directly to waste dealers.

2. scavengers and workers providing waste-collection services separate valuable materials from mixed waste, and sell the recovered materials to waste/recycling collectors for further processing.

3. organisations such as schools, housing estate committees, government departments and green groups run their own waste-recovery schemes, and sell or give recovered materials to scavengers or waste dealers.

There are about 400 private waste collectors and 100 recyclers and reprocessors, according to 1997 records. Most collect more than one kind of recyclable, whereas recyclers and reprocessors usually handle only one kind of recyclable in their workshops.

About 67 per cent of recyclable material was disposed of at landfills, which, according to EPD figures, compares favourably with 'most other developed countries'.

Here are the figures for some of them: Britain (1995-96, Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions). National - 83 per cent by weight landfilled; 12 per cent by weight recovered through recycling, waste-to-energy and composting; London boroughs - 78 per cent by weight landfilled; 22 per cent by weight recovered through waste-to-energy and recycling.

Denmark (1993, Ministry of Environment and Energy). National - 50 per cent recycled; 23 per cent incinerated; 26 per cent controlled dumping or special treatment.

South Korea (1995, Ministry of Environment). National - 72.5 per cent landfilled; no data on percentage recovered.

Japan (1994, Clean Japan Centre). National - 75.5 per cent landfilled; 12 per cent recovered; 12.5 per cent incinerated.

USA (1996, Environmental Protection Agency). National - 56 per cent landfilled; 27 per cent recovered for recycling and composting; 17 per cent incinerated. California - 72 per cent landfilled; 26 per cent recycled; two per cent incinerated. New York - 52 per cent landfilled; 32 per cent recycled; 16 per cent incinerated.

THE IMBALANCE BETWEEN COMMERCIAL AND DOMESTIC WASTE A 1994 survey showed that while only eight per cent (175,000 tonnes) of Hong Kong domestic waste was recovered for recycling or reuse, 53 per cent, or 1.4 million tonnes) of commercial and industrial waste was recovered.

The EPD says this is because clean, commercially viable quantities of construction and industrial waste can be separated at the point of production. Producers of this waste also have to pay the cost of collection and transporting their waste to landfills. If they don't pay the charges, they are not allowed in the landfill; if they leave the waste elsewhere it becomes illegal dumping By contrast, there is a lack of facilities and incentives to encourage people to separate domestic waste, compounded by the fact that less domestic waste is reusable or worth recycling. Much of it is useless junk - just picture your own bin. There is a difference between what can be recycled and what is commercially viable to recycle. Steve Barclay, for the Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands, rejects calls to spend more public funds on subsidising recycling rather than landfills. He says: 'Any funds available should be directed at reducing the amount of waste created - recycling is a second-best option.' According to the Waste Reduction Framework Plan, in the past there was a big problem with construction and demolition material going to landfills. Much of this material was 'inert', that is, soil and rock. So we had the ridiculous situation of digging a big hole to put our garbage in, then filling it up with dirt from somewhere else, while on reclamation sites marine sand and other fill was being imported to turn sea into land.

The Government says it aims to address this problem by ensuring there are enough convenient 'barging' points, where fill from construction sites can be taken to reclamation sites. The fill can also be used to restore old quarries.

WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING GOOD Under the Government's plan, companies cutting their waste levels might get a 'green award' - but little else. Bowen Leung believes good public relations are enough of an incentive for companies to cut waste production, and says legislation is not necessary. He doesn't say whether he also believes in the tooth fairy.

Groups such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Conservancy Association believe this is naive and patently ridiculous, and more concrete incentives such as tax breaks and polluter-pays laws are needed.

Two years before the release of the Waste Reduction Framework Plan in May 1997, a Waste Reduction Study by a government consultant recommended payments to charities, voluntary and statutory bodies and private companies that recycled waste. Not surprisingly, this recommendation was given short shrift by the Government.

REALLY NASTY STUFF If the gaseous grunge in landfills isn't foul enough for you, the New Territories is dotted with illegal dumping sites where some really hideous stuff is deposited in the dead of night.

Friends of the Earth's Mei Ng says despite the establishment of a government task force under governor Chris Patten, there are still more than 150 illegal waste-dumping sites, some containing more than 110 tonnes of rubbish. The task force is still in operation, but the Government says it doesn't have the manpower to keep watch on all sites all the time..

The group did its own investigation in April and found some dumps contained dead pigs, all sorts of construction waste, and burning tyres. Wild birds were feeding on the dead animals, toxic fumes spouting from the burning rubber. Some of these black spots, Ng says, were next to villages, country parks and even buffer zones to ecologically sensitive areas like the Mai Po Marshes.

She believes the culprits are mainly vehicle workshop employees, farmers, construction sites workers and public works contractors.

'Some 3,750 tonnes of scrap tyres are produced each year,' she says. 'In 1996, only 3,240 tonnes were disposed of in landfills. That means 510 tonnes (about 570,000 tyres) were dumped or burned illegally.' Ng says the Waste Disposal Ordinance applies only if offenders are caught in the act. There were only 42 prosecutions in 1997, up from 17 the year before. Until October this year, 58 people had been prosecuted.

If someone is caught dumping waste on private land, the Planning Department can prosecute the owner for breaching the Town Planning Ordinance. This provides for little more than a slap on the wrist: one big construction company was fined $50,000 for its 22nd offence last year, which Ng describes as a 'mockery of the judicial system'.

EPD director Robert Law has admitted the problem is getting out of hand. Under the Waste Disposal Ordinance, the maximum penalty for illegal dumping is $200,000 and six months in prison for a first offence. The fine rises to a maximum of $500,000 for a second offence, and fines of $10,000 a day can be imposed for continuing offences. Complaints about illegal dumping jumped from 114 in 1995 to 409 in 1998, although when it comes to following up complaints manpower is again a problem for the Government.

BURN, BABY, BURN - ENERGY FROM LANDFILLS In the US, measures are imposed to control gaseous emissions from decomposing rubbish at more than 700 landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Many landfill operators are beginning to make use of the energy potential of landfill gas.

In Hong Kong, the gas, which is mainly highly explosive methane, is usually burned off. It is extracted through a series of ducts and wells, then transferred to a treatment plant, where it is burned in enclosed 'flare stations' to destroy harmful compounds, before being released into the atmosphere.

Of the gas, senior environmental protection officer Andy King says: 'It's not God's gift to the engineer. It comes very wet and very dirty and if you put it in a pipe without cleaning it, the pipe won't last very long.' The Government now converts part of the gas generated at landfill sites into electricity, which is used to meet the landfill sites' electricity needs: WENT has two generators producing 800kW each, and another 1,100kW; SENT has a 970kW generator, NENT a 980kW generator.

Meanwhile, in Raleigh, North Carolina, a boiler powered by landfill gas generates steam at 11,000kg an hour for a pharmaceutical plant. Natural Power Incorporated and the Raleigh Landfill Gas Corporation spent US$1.6 million (HK$12.3 million) to set up the plant, which enjoys revenue from steam sales of $500,000 a year, from which the city gets royalties of $75,000.

The three steps in turning gas to power are gas collection; processing and conversion; and delivering electricity to the user.

Collection: a series of wells is placed throughout landfill sites, and pipes inserted into the wells. These are connected to a series of progressively larger pipes which eventually reach the processing station.

Processing: the gas is filtered and contaminants removed.

Conversion: internal combustion engines or turbines are used to power on-site generators.

SOME RANDOM RUBBISH FACTS: Babies born within three km of hazardous-waste landfills are at serious risk of birth defects, researchers from five European countries found.

Friends of the Earth estimates schoolchildren in Hong Kong are responsible for almost 200,000 Sytrofoam lunchboxes discarded every day. Styrofoam, however, makes up less than one per cent of domestic waste.

The average Hong Kong person produces a kilogram of garbage a day - unless they live in Kwai Tsing, in which case they are responsible for a scant 750 grams. But the slobs of Yau Ma Tei and Mongkok wallow in a whopping 2.5 kilograms of trash they produce every day.

We throw out more than 15 million plastic bags daily.

At present, 15 per cent of paper is recovered for recycling (although the current economic woes will play havoc with this statistic). One per cent of plastic is recovered, and no glass.

But glass, plastic bottles and cans are our biggest waste items, accounting for 41 per cent of the daily garbage pile. Food waste makes up 33 per cent, followed by wood, furniture, rattan items and the like, which account for 10 per cent. The rest is rubbish of an indeterminate nature.

The Department of Health's Hygiene Division, which monitors the safety of imported and locally produced food, says Hong Kong is considered an 'hygienic place'. In case you wondered.

Half of the 168 public housing estates, with a total of about two million tenants, were involved in a recent Waste Recycling Campaign. Banners and colourful recycling bins were placed in prominent places. Most residents ignored the scheme and put ordinary rubbish in the nice coloured bins.

DAVID VERSUS GOLIATH The Newcastle City Council in Australia took on McDonald's in 1997, insisting it use washable plates and cutlery after deciding it was sick of the cost of disposing of fast-food debris. The courts ruled that the hamburger chain would only be granted a development application for one of its Newcastle outlets if it met the council's conditions. Lord Mayor Greg Heys said fast-food packaging was responsible for about two-thirds of the waste collected on the annual Clean Up Australia Day, and the council intended to impose the new regulations on other fast food chains in the area.

McDonald's had given the council no evidence that it would be inefficient and inappropriate to use washable plates and cutlery, he said.

LITTERBUGS Despite the famed television Lap Sap Chung campaign, the Hong Kong litterbug is still alive and well. A recent survey revealed 70 per cent of people believe littering penalties are inadequate. Fines are left to the discretion of the magistrate, although he can impose penalties up to $25,000 and jail offenders for six months. A proposal exists to introduce a fixed, $1,000 fine for littering. In 1997, 13,749 litterbugs were caught and prosecuted. The USD began an anti-littering campaign in September, and two months later had issued 563 warnings and prosecuted 203 people.

Spitting, by the way, carries a maximum $10,000 fine.

THE PAPER CHASE The closure of Concordia Paper, one of Hong Kong's main waste-paper recyclers, thrust the recycling issue into the spotlight. Events reached flashpoint just before Christmas, with paper recyclers reaching a last-minute agreement with police to scale down a protest in Central after prosecutions under the Public Order Ordinance were threatened.

Redundant paper recyclers, denied government assistance, had planned to drive more than 100 trucks through Central during the morning rush-hour. After tense negotiations, the recyclers agreed to use only 20 trucks and to stage a separate rally outside the Chief Executive's Office.

After the protest, Democratic Party legislator and Security Panel chairman James To Kun-sun accused police of harassing workers who took part by recording their identity-card numbers. 'It's an intimidating move and a waste of police power,' he said. 'Why did the police have to record their identity-card numbers? There was no crime ... the police are simply harassing these people.' Concordia closed in November with debts of $468 million - not long after an EPD policy review described the local paper recycling industry as 'alive and kicking'.

It dealt with about 500 tonnes of waste paper a day, which has been estimated at from 25 to 40 per cent of all waste paper collected in Hong Kong.

Basic economics dictated that the money Concordia made from recycling was insufficient for the company to make a profit, given the costs of recycling and their return on the finished product. After the closure, 100 schools were forced to dump 40 tonnes of paper they had collected for recycling.

On December 1, Future's Safe, the last surviving recycling mill, announced it would not accept any more waste paper, claiming it already had 7,000 tonnes stockpiled at its Yuen Long site ready to be recycled. The company said it would shut down for a week to clear the backlog. Meanwhile, the Concordia closure has hit the hundreds of scavengers who earn their money collecting waste cardboard and paper. Tang Mui, 65, makes several rounds a day delviering to a shop in Wan Chai. 'Life is getting difficlt and money hard to make,' he says.

Before Concordia's closure, about 1,000 tonnes of waste paper a day was turned into coated duplex board used for packaging. Edwin Lau of Friends of the Earth says the Government should now require municipal councils or the EPD to collect and transport useful waste to specific locations, where recyclers could come to collect what they needed.

Lui Hon-chu, manager of Ping Kee Waste Paper in Central, says the economic squeeze means prices have fallen from $400-$500 a tonne to $200 - 'not even enough to pay workers' wages'. The Government met members of the paper recycling industry to discuss the problems only a few weeks ago - more than 18 months after the Draft Waste Reduction Plan was drawn up.

The EPD says: 'The Government understands the recycling industry is suffering as a result of the economic downturn. But to provide direct subsidies to the industry is not consistent with the Government's general policy, or the Waste Reduction Framework Plan.

We recognise the need to assist the industry due to its low profit margins, and the following measures are being pursued: changing building regulations to provide adequate space in new buildings for material-recovery; allocating land exclusively to the recycling industry at affordable rents; introducing tax incentives to encourage the recycling business; integrating resource-recovery facilities into our waste-management system to provide a relatively stable supply of clean, recyclable materials; promoting the Demonstration Scheme, which encourages the adoption of new and cost-effective technologies to help the industry.' According to Kim Salkeld, vociferous writer of Letters to the Editor on behalf of the Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands, 'worldwide, there is a glut of paper. This is depressing the prices that exporters or recyclers are willing to pay collectors. On top of that, the market for recycled paper products is not strong and is suffering in the current economic conditions ...

'Since we don't have waste disposal charges, waste is apparently free to the producers. They don't see reuse or recycling as worthwhile to them since there is no cost of disposal to avoid.' He says subsidies are not the answer. 'The moment we started to give a subsidy to collectors, purchasers would drop their prices to get the benefit of the subsidy themselves. If we gave the subsidy to the purchasers - recyclers or exporters - there would be no reason for them to pass it on to collectors.

'And a subsidy to take away or recycle waste, in the absence of anything to deter waste production, would simply add to the fundamental problem we have of too much waste being produced in Hong Kong.' Rewarding bad behaviour, he says, instead of encouraging responsible behaviour, undermines society. 'That is bad for the economy, bad for the environment, bad for the city.' There seems to be no solution: the Government will not give handouts and recycling is not profitable.

Greenpeace's Ho Wai-chi says it is easy for the Government to claim the 'invisible hand' of the market can sort out the recycling problem. 'It's just not going to work in this case,' he says. 'It requires strong government intervention or a kind of indirect subsidy so the industry can survive. At the very least they need tax breaks, lower rates, that sort of help.' He says Greenpeace is now working with organisations like Green Power, Friends of the Earth and the Conservancy Association to put forward a comprehensive proposal on waste management in Hong Kong, which would focus on the paper recycling problem in particular, and waste reduction in general.

'We want a comprehensive collection system and guidelines on how to support the industry. We believe recyclers should be given a piece of land on which they could share facilities, a kind of 'waste park' if you like,' he says.

'Hopefully we'll be ready to put this to the Government this month. At the moment, the price of land, rent, facilities - it's unfriendly to this important industry.' LOTS OF CLEAR BOTTLES, HANGING ON THE WALL (AND IN THE STREETS, AND THE PARKS ...) Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the high-quality plastic used widely for plastic containers for water and soft drinks. More than 70 million PET bottles a year are used in Hong Kong. Most end up in landfills. In contrast, the US recycles half of its PET bottles, and there is a strong recycling market in Europe. Taiwan recently introduced a mandatory PET bottle recycling programme.

Some Hong Kong companies have begun collecting the bottles and taking them to China, where they are recycled into plastic toys, polyester fibres for carpets and textiles or stuffing for jackets. Thousands of tonnes of them were collected for recycling by schools and community groups, but they ended up in landfills because the labour and transport costs were too high to permit recycling.

RED CHINA GREENS China will phase out the use of polystyrene food boxes within a year as part of a programme which includes recycling waste, according to a recent report in the official China Daily. The Administration Centre of China's Agenda 21, a body responsible for implementing China's sustainable economic and social development, is to work with technological and environmental protection specialists to draw up long-term plans for turning solid waste into recycled resources, centre officials said.

Discharged waste will be turned into organic compounds for fertilisers and plastic products, and the use of new technology will mean garbage which once took 40 days to be burned would need only nine to 12 days to be made 'environmentally friendly', according to the report.

The ministry said it would also push for 'green food boxes', made of biodegradable materials such as rice straw, and phase out plastic food containers. Statistics show 10 billion polystyrene food boxes are used on the mainland each year - polluting major cities, tourism sites and being strewn along railway lines.