The government recently presented the Lantau Tomorrow Vision project for a two-week public consultation. Environmental groups have raised questions about the plan from the outset and urged the Environmental Protection Department to reject three project profiles related to the plan. They object to Lantau Tomorrow Vision being rushed through without a strategic environmental assessment of the whole project and without alternative solutions to the housing crisis being considered. The Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance requires proponents of development projects to prepare a report assessing the project’s impact on the environment and describing measures to mitigate that impact. The project can go ahead if the Environmental Protection Department approves the report and issues an environmental permit. With projects such as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge , the airport’s third runway, and the incinerator at Shek Kwu Chau, the proponents in question are the respective government agencies: the Development Bureau, the Airport Authority and the Environmental Protection Department itself. The department’s officers thus find themselves assessing the environmental impact of a project proposed by other government officials. Given that the Lantau Tomorrow Vision project has been breathlessly pushed by the government as a game-changer for Hong Kong, the conflict of interest is even worse. Concern about this self-policing was voiced by Christine Loh Kung-wai, formerly undersecretary of the environment, when she was a legislator. During the second reading of the Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance in 1997, she said: “In the case of many important projects, such as large-scale public housing, reclamations or other infrastructural projects, the project proponent sitting across the table from the director of the Environmental Protection Department will be another senior government officer representing some other aspect of the public interest. We know there will be internal conflicts within the administration over how stringently to apply the bill in such cases.” Has the environmental impact assessment become a bureaucratic rubber stamp? How many environmental impact reports on government projects has the department ever rejected? And why should taxpayers bear the costs of these exercises if it is now a bureaucratic kabuki dance whose outcome is a foregone conclusion? Tom Yam, Lantau Lay Hong Kong’s waste burden at Beijing’s door The concern over the waste problem expressed in the letter , “If we’re not careful, our waste will bury us” (November 28) is eclipsed by the dwindling of retail businesses, which has triggered unemployment and could cause greater social unrest. Once upon a time, our lifestyles involved high income, high expenditure and fast fashion. Landfills and recycling have been the usual exit routes for waste, and are the least of our worries. In the long run, Hong Kong is likely to see its population burgeon due to a steady stream of arrivals from the mainland. China has a corresponding obligation to help remedy the growing waste problem by granting us a slice of land near the border to enable us to scale up our landfill and recycling capacity. The mainland is good at managing mega issues. A recycling bottleneck can be easily unblocked by simple policy measures by the central government. Edmond Pang, Fanling Chinese leaders must answer big internal questions first This is the situation China and President Xi Jinping are facing. Internationally, China is not scoring big points. Internally, it faces many challenges, such as rising debt for both regional governments and property developers . The central government has put in place restrictive measures against tech giants, who are an important part of the country’s engine of growth. The country is grappling with an ageing population . A go-it-alone attitude will get China nowhere. With the twice-a-decade Party Congress coming up in 2022, big questions have to be tackled and answered. These include how to solve our many internal problems, how to maintain our international standing, and how to face the international perception that actions against Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet are counterproductive. In short, China has many questions to be asked internally, before it pronounces opinions internationally. A lot of listening and homework remains to be done. Peter den Hartog, Tuen Mun Procedure for airport arrivals leaves much to be desired Presently placed in solitary confinement at the behest of Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s government as part of Hong Kong’s quarantine policy, I was curious as to whether she and the eminently qualified Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan, who have the health of the Hong Kong public foremost in their minds, can explain why, after five hours of being processed at Hong Kong airport, there is no social distancing in the last hour as residents and guests to our once great city are herded into queues and then crammed into two lifts before being placed on filthy minibuses with poor ventilation. Our bus, despite all seven passengers destined for hotels in the Western district of Hong Kong Island, took a much longer route via the Central tunnel. When we asked why we did not take the most direct route, protecting Hongkongers from exposure to us, we were informed that the bus owner only allows them to take the route with the cheapest toll. Apparently, the government outsources airport-quarantine transfers to the cheapest operators. Mark Peaker, The Peak