Hong Kong must reduce waste, increase recycling, invest in modern waste treatment facilities and extend landfills. Under Secretary for the Environment Christine Loh explains how. Wong Joon San reports.

Christine Loh Kung-wai's job is to find the solution to the problem that has bedeviled the administration, frustrated environmental experts, stirred up popular discontent among the "not-in-my-backyard" set, and left the city with an all but insurmountable pile of garbage. The Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying apparently thinks Loh can do the job as he handed her the role of under secretary for the environment in September, 2012. Few would envy her appointment.

Politicians and political parties have learned to shy away from the waste disposal issue, when the very whisper of a new government plan to solve the problem brings people into the streets, carrying placards screaming, "whatever it is, I'm against it."

Hong Kong's per capita production of waste is higher than comparable cities in Asia because those cities started tackling waste issues in the mid-1990s and have achieved positive waste reduction results. That's the problem.

"We aim to reduce Hong Kong's municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal rate on a per capita basis by 20 percent, from 1.27 kg per day to 1 kg or below by 2017, and then further down to 0.8 kg or below, representing a 40 percent drop from 2011," Loh says.

Still, Loh has a battle plan and as she lays it out point by point, one is inclined to think, maybe she can untangle this skein of complex factors that go toward making waste disposal one of the city's most vexing nuisances.

Speaking to China Daily in an exclusive interview, she says, "I have no problem with a more aggressive political culture. I grew up in it."

Regardless of the politics of Hong Kong, Loh thinks people need be told the issues and be given a clear, rational understanding of how the problem can be solved, she explains.

"(Hong Kong) people are more demanding today because they are better educated, they've gone around the world and are more capable of voicing their concerns. We mustn't be put off because of them making demands. The crux of the issue is still the same. We must explain and educate them. That is what politics is about," says Loh.

Taking care to make her position clear, she talked about the need for the government to put the problem into perspective. That, she believes has been accomplished. There's a blueprint that sets out everything, explaining in detail the need for "sustainable use of resources" - shorthand for taking out the garbage. It's simple enough, though each of the points is capable of being elaborated into a volume of some dimension.

"It is really very challenging to explain complex issues to a large number of people. And to do this, the message must be clear and the government needs opportunities to tell people about it," Loh says.

"Modern communications have changed. (In the past), people used to concentrate around an identifiable group of media outlets. The government could send out press releases, and hold one or two press conferences (to get their message across)," she explains.

Now, the government has to do all that and a lot of other things to get its message across. The good thing is that many more people today are listening than was the case in the past.

"Reaching out to opinion makers and shapers in society is also important although they are a relatively narrow group of people. We have to work harder to explain things to them," Loh says, clasping her hands in front of her.

"When we go to the legislature to seek funding support, we go for one project at a time. For example, extending landfills. People think we only want to do that, but we are in fact doing many other things related to waste at the same time.

"The difficulty we are facing right now is that we need to communicate better that we are taking multiple actions concurrently, including the extension of landfills," Loh says. When people tend to focus on many other things, then it becomes much more difficult to explain the landfill project to them.

"To overcome that, we need many opportunities to communicate with the public (about the government's waste plans and approach), in addition to speaking to political parties and members of the legislature," Loh says.

"By the end of this term of government in 2017, we will have begun the transformation of Hong Kong's waste reduction and management. It's a great privilege to be part of it. We have to organize ourselves well and we need high level support from the Chief Executive, Chief Secretary, Financial Secretary, LegCo members. We need to be in partnership with them. We will need new laws that will have to be passed. We will need funding. We will also need the community to say we would be willing to change habits," Loh says.

What we want to do is to reduce our disposal rate, which is measurable, by 40 percent in 2022," Loh says.

Resources sustainability

In May, 2013, the Environment Bureau published a 26-page Blueprint for Sustainable Use of Resources 2013-2022, outlining what Hong Kong needs to do and how committed the government is to taking the necessary decisions so that it can put the city on a clear path towards a "Use Less, Waste Less" lifestyle.

"We laid out all the things we need to do, set a timetable and a target to reduce the current per capita municipal solid waste disposal rate by 40 percent over the next decade," Loh explains.

"We will put substantial effort in social campaigns to mobilize our citizens to take more environmentally-sustainable actions in their daily lives. We will work with communities and districts, we will collaborate with business stakeholders, and we will encourage non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to develop projects as we make this transition," she says.

Loh admits that one of the most critical things the government had to do is to explain the blueprint clearly to the public. "There are still (many) questions about whether the government is really committed to dealing with the waste problem, whether we can reduce waste by an even larger percentage so we don't have to extend landfills, and whether we can build the incinerator in another location rather than at Shek Kwu Chau (SKC)," she says.

She argues that the SKC site has been chosen and is acceptable because it is far away from the dense population, and that it presents a more balanced spatial distribution of strategic waste facilities; it is on the downwind side of the predominant wind; the plant will be constructed and operated to meet stringent international standards; and there are adequate environmental mitigation measures.

"I understand why people are questioning our commitment - they say the government should have done more in the past. This administration is determined to take action. We need to show people we are not going to back away and that we will continue to push what is in the blueprint forward despite opposition here and there," Loh says.

Regarding Hong Kong's current three landfills, Loh explains that the South East New Territories (SENT) site will reach capacity by 2015, the North East New Territories (NENT) by 2017 and the West New Territories (WENT) landfill by 2019 and therefore, they need to be extended.

"No matter how hard we work on waste reduction, recycling and building waste treatment facilities, we still need the three landfills to be extended," she says.

As for the incinerator, in the light of the large quantity of MSW Hong Kong people generate daily, Loh explains: "We need to build at least one good size facility to treat at least 3,000 tons a day so as to significantly reduce the volume of waste to landfills."

"We had to hold back on this (plan) due to a court case (objecting to the construction of the incinerator) but now that the judgment has been given on July 26 (in favor of the government), we can continue to take the project forward, although the litigant against the government is likely to appeal," she says.

"We have major plans to deal with food waste. Firstly, we are starting with public education and telling people how to reduce food waste. Our Food Wise HK Campaign is quite successful in raising awareness," Loh says, pointing out that the government was also working with hotels, restaurants and institutions on best practices they could implement to reduce waste at source, helping them save money at the same time.

So, hopefully, Hong Kong people will join hands with the authorities over the burning issue of waste reduction and management as it takes many years to see the benefits.

Contact the writer at joonsan@chinadailyhk.com

Christine Loh, under secretary for the environment, says: "The difficulty we are facing right now is that we need to communicate better that we are taking multiple actions concurrently, including the extension of landfills." Parker Zheng / China Daily

(HK Edition 09/06/2013 page8)