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The government's proposed answers for dealing with Hong Kong's garbage problem, such as building an incinerator that would emit toxic pollutants into the city's air while burning trash, are often radically unsustainable. And while Hong Kong does recycle some materials, the city is unable to reap most of the benefits of doing so because the recyclables are sent abroad.
Unless the landfill is expanded by the government, SENT must cease operations once the compacted solid trash reaches the highest level of the site. A marker, seen in the distance, denotes the top-most level. Image: Justin Heifetz
In Hong Kong's landfills, waste is compacted before being covered with a layer of soil at night. The water that seeps through that decomposing waste is then treated in facilities. The government's legislature acknowledged in a panel over a decade ago that the highly toxic substance, called leachate, runs off into the city's groundwater.
"We understand that the current practice of disposing of food waste at landfills is neither sustainable nor environmentally desirable," Joanna Tse, a spokesperson for the government's Environmental Protection Department (EPD), said in a written statement provided to Motherboard. "In the future, landfill space will be more prudently used as a last resort."
Image: Justin Heifetz
The government's alternatives to landfills are extreme, if not unusual. A waste management facility slated for its first phase of operation by 2025 is projected to burn 3,000 tons of garbage each day using what the legislature is calling "advanced incineration." The facility, on an outlying island built from reclaimed land, has already been widely criticized for the damage it will cause to both Hong Kong's air quality and marine life.
"The consumer will just continue to generate waste and the government will burn it all. It's the wrong concept," Edwin Lau, founder and executive director of Green Earth, an active Hong Kong-based non-profit environmental lobby group, said in a phone interview. "I think the government understands the need for holistic waste management, but they need to push useful and effective policy and measures to engage the community."
The government is considering expanding the landfills even further. But in space-hungry Hong Kong, where skyrocketing property prices are among the most expensive in the world, there are few places left to build.
