Hong Kong, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The city produces a lot of household waste and construction waste every day, but people rarely see the figure of garbage, Hong Kong's clean and tidy city appearance is always praised.

Statistics from the Environmental Protection Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government show that in 2015, Hong Kong people dumped an average of 15,102 tons of solid waste into landfills every day, of which 10,159 tons of municipal solid waste, or 1.39 kilograms per person per day, is the largest amount of kitchen waste, paper and plastic. About 35 percent of this MSW has been recovered and recycled.

Data show that the amount of food waste disposed of in Hong Kong's municipal solid waste in 2015 decreased by 7.1 per cent year-on-year. The EPD said this was due to the positive response from various sectors of the community to various measures taken by the Government, in particular to reduce food waste at source and donate excess food to the needy.

The SAR Government has played an important role in waste reduction. In May 2013, it launched the Hong Kong Blueprint for Resource Recycling 2013-2022, which covers all aspects of waste management. It aims to establish and improve an integrated management system for waste reduction, charging, collection, disposal and disposal. To reduce the daily per capita disposal of municipal solid waste in Hong Kong to 0.8 kg or less by 2022.

Subsequently, the Environment Bureau published the Hong Kong Food Waste and Garden Waste Plan 2014-2022 in 2014, which consolidated and updated the strategy for dealing with food waste with the aim of reducing the per capita amount of food waste disposed of at landfills by 40% by 2022.

In response, the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Wong Kam-sing, said that the Food Waste Programme focused on four strategies to tackle the food waste challenge, including food conservation for all, food donation, food waste collection and waste to energy. The overall strategy focuses on waste reduction at source, while those food waste that cannot be avoided are recovered and recycled as far as possible.

Apart from waste reduction policies and regulations such as volume-level levy on solid waste and producer responsibility Schemes, the Government has also invested considerable resources in improving the infrastructure related to waste treatment, mainly including the construction of organic resource recovery centres, integrated waste management facilities and landfills.

In addition, the Hong Kong Environmental Excellence Awards and the Hong Kong Green Certification, jointly organised by the Environmental Campaign Committee and the EPD together with some major trade associations in Hong Kong, encourage enterprises and organisations to implement environmental management, measure their commitment to and performance in environmental management, and recognize those enterprises and organisations that have demonstrated outstanding performance in environmental management.

Community participation makes waste reduction work better carried out. With the encouragement of the SAR Government, people have consciously reduced food waste, sorted household waste and put it into garbage sorting bins and community environmental protection stations, and brought their own shopping bags when shopping in supermarkets and shopping malls.

As early as 2005, the EPD launched a programme on source separation of China's waste. A variety of recyclable materials such as plastic packaging materials, optical discs, waste paper, aluminium cans and plastic bottles collected by property management companies are put into waste separation facilities for recycling.

The Government has also set up nearly 20 community recycling centres in various districts in Hong Kong to encourage the public to separate their waste for recycling.

In a community located in Sha Tin, the reporter saw that each residential building has an environmentally friendly recycling box and glass bottle recycling bucket downstairs, and people will throw unused metals, waste paper and plastics into the corresponding space. The security staff of the community told reporters that at more than 7 o 'clock every morning, there will be a garbage truck to take away these wastes by classification and packing.

According to the polluter pays principle, the Environmental Protection Department implements the construction waste disposal charging plan, requiring construction waste producers to pay a reasonable disposal cost. In addition, the Government actively encourages the industry to separate and recycle waste as far as possible, and to minimise the amount of waste through effective planning and management of construction works. At present, Hong Kong has three large landfills, located in the Northeast New Territories, Southeast New Territories and West New Territories, forming a "triangular" geographical layout.

A spokesman for the EPD recently said that the Government attached great importance to waste management and would continue to vigorously implement various waste reduction and recycling measures and implement various waste minimization policies. At the same time, the Government will continue to raise the level of waste recovery and recycling through such means as education and promotion of clean recycling.

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