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Carrie Chan

High charges and an increase in illegal dumping are also issues dogging legislators

The government's waste disposal bill is impractical in the way it determines which waste is disposed of at different facilities, Legco's Bills Committee heard yesterday.

While green groups and legislators supported the bill, they also said they were  concerned over the illegal dumping of waste and high charges.

The bill aims to introduce charges of up to $125 a tonne for construction and demolition waste dumped in landfills. The charges would be $100 at waste-sorting facilities, and $27 at sites for waste already sorted.

If the amount of waste material  reused is more than 50 per cent,  it can be taken to a sorting facility for recycling or to a public fill, such as a reclamation site.

Waste which does not meet the 50 per cent content requirement will go to landfills.

Legislator Miriam Lau Kin-yee,  who represents the transport sector, said the scheme should not define construction waste by the percentage of material that can be reused.

'The definition of waste is not as simple as the government thinks. It's not an exact science,' Ms Lau said.

Hong Kong Dumper Truck Drivers' Association secretary Ho Hung-fai said  drivers would not know the exact content of their trucks' loads and would find it hard to judge which site to go.

Hong Kong Construction Association representative Derek Zen warned  that the introduction of the landfill charge scheme would result in a drastic increase in illegal dumping.

'We would suggest a charge of around $60 [instead of $125] per tonne,' he said.

He added that global positioning systems should be used to track dump trucks which go to illegal dumping sites.

Independent Albert Chan Wai-yip  said builders and developers would dump waste on farmland in the New Territories because it would be much cheaper.

Association director Ng Cho-nam  said the government should tighten the definition of farmland to avoid the dumping of huge amounts of waste.



Confusion about definition of waste fuels worries over disposal bill