Construction waste, plastic bottles and lunchboxes were among the rubbish left behind by labourers and encountered by South China Morning Post letter writer Peter Millward on Lantau. We've all seen the same at a completed-works site somewhere in Hong Kong, along with cigarette packets and butts, worn-out boots, well-thumbed magazines and carrier bags. Millward's suggestion that the companies that allow their workers to leave such a mess should be held responsible, using existing littering laws, sounds perfectly sensible and easy to implement - but he is reckoning on a government that cares about such things.
It seems unlikely our leaders will compel labourers to clear up after themselves unless their mates, the tycoons, somehow benefit from the extra work. Perhaps, instead, we should appeal directly to Li Ka-shing, et al, to establish a rubbish-collection unit to clear up after their messy subcontractors. Of course, it would have to be taxpayer funded - and generously.
