"HoHoSkips" booking service for construction waste collection extended to Kowloon City, Wong Tai Sin and North districts on trial basis
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A spokesman for the EPD said that the department launched the trade-led pilot scheme on collection and recycling of construction waste at the district level early this year, and the first project was rolled out in Sham Shui Po District. Through the setting up of convenient collection points for construction waste and the use of smart skips, as well as the "HoHoSkips" app to collect small quantities of construction waste generated from small-scale renovation works, the renovation trade is provided with a convenient, time-saving and efficient construction waste collection service with a view to reducing illegal disposal of construction waste at source. The booking service was extended to Yuen Long, Sha Tin and Tai Po districts in mid-July and was also expanded to Tsuen Wan, Kwai Tsing and Yau Tsim Mong districts on a trial basis at the beginning of October.
The EPD extended the booking service to Kowloon City, Wong Tai Sin and North districts on a trial basis today, so that small-scale renovation practitioners and members of the public can also book the service via the "HoHoSkips" app to arrange the collection of small quantities of construction waste in these districts. It will also help encourage more practitioners in the trade to use the service and further boost the quantity of construction waste collected under the scheme. With the funding support of the Recycling Fund and the reduction of transportation and disposal costs through recyclers participating in consolidating delivery and waste recovery separation, the service providers will only charge $71 per tonne of inert construction waste and $200 per tonne of non-inert construction waste.
To strengthen promotion, the EPD made a total of over 10 000 outreach visits and introduced the scheme to over 1 000 renovation works contractors by phone from the beginning of this year to the end of November. In addition, since September, the department has placed advertisements at MTR train compartments and station concourses, on buses of Kowloon Motor Bus as well as a large shopping mall. The scheme was also promoted through social platforms and online advertisements.
The spokesman added that the EPD would step up enforcement actions while implementing the pilot scheme in the aforementioned districts by, inter alia, flexibly deploying surveillance camera systems and strengthening manpower for blitz operations against the illegal disposal of construction waste. These actions aim to promote a wider use of the collection service in the trade.
The "HoHoSkips" app can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store and Google Play. Members of the public and the renovation trade are welcome to install and use the app.
For more information about the "HoHoSkips" scheme, please visit the dedicated website hohoskips.hk.
Ends/Wednesday, December 1, 2021
Issued at HKT 17:09
Issued at HKT 17:09
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