Press

For Immediate Release

The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce supports the Government’s recent efforts to tackle Hong Kong’s looming waste challenges.We believe adequate waste treatment and disposal infrastructure facilities must be in place for any sustainable waste management strategyto be successful.

“The Chamber has long been a supporter of the polluter-paysprinciple and a strong advocate for comprehensive waste management strategies,” says Chamber Chairman C K Chow. “We are glad to see that some of our recommendations have been taken on board by the Government to reduce waste at source. However, we are concerned that as Hong Kong must rely primarily on landfills to dispose of municipal solid wasteuntil those waste policy measures are fully in place, we need to act with a greater sense of urgency.”

Over 13,000 tonnes of rubbish is dumped into Hong Kong’s three nearly saturated landfills every day. Without any alternative, expanding landfills seems to be the only feasible option.

Although the Government has introduced additional measures to minimize the impact of landfills on nearby residents and the environment, the Chamber stresses that expanding landfills is only an interim measure. Ongoing and new waste management initiatives have to be pursued in tandem, because relying on landfills is obviously unpopular and unsustainable. Incineration is a proven technology to deal with waste, yet Hong Kong lagsbehind other advanced economies around the world in using waste-to-energy facilities.

According to the HKGCC Annual Business Survey conducted in November 2013, some 74.9% of respondents supported building waste incinerators, up by 15.2 percentage pointsfrom 2012.

“The Government must act with a greater sense of urgency to carry forward plans to build an integrated waste management facility, because it will require a lead time of about seven years before it becomes operational,” saidChamber CEO Shirley Yuen.

The Chamber urges the Government and the Legislative Council to work together and muster the political will to expedite solutions to deal with the mounting waste problem. “We have debated this for far too long. We need to urgently start work on developing solutions to ensure a clean and sustainable waste disposal system for Hong Kong,” said Yuen.