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Following is the transcript (English portion) of the remarks made by the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Edward Yau, at a media session after officiating at the opening ceremony of the Yan Oi Tong EcoPark Plastic Recycling Centre in Tuen Mun today (Wednesday):
Reporter: Government invested a fund of 10 million dollars in three years. What would happen to that after three years? Would the Government continue to fund the project? And why plastic, why not glass?
Secretary for the Environment: I think the reason of starting with the plastic is that first we have plenty of plastic bottles and utensils being dumped into our landfills. One of the objectives of this scheme is to encourage the collection of this plastic waste and for them to be channeled into these production lines whereby they will be cut into small pellets as the raw material for the industrial processes. During the process, of course, making use of the social enterprise, we are able to create about 100 jobs, largely catering for the local employment sector for this project to be started.
The funding of the scheme is to help to see if this industry can be established in the EcoPark. If it can be sustained, of course, I think we are happy to see whether the social enterprise will roll on or for the entire market to incorporate this, so that it can become a flourishing trade and enhance the recycling of plastics in Hong Kong.
Reporter: Mr Yau, two questions. What was the cost of actually building this project? And secondly, is the Government looking at investing in other projects similar to this and to move away from the need in using incinerators or landfills?
Secretary for the Environment: It is a continuous effort whereby we try to reduce, recycle and reuse most of the waste and plastic is one of the major candidate products. The investment in this is in fact to try out in a pilot way whether plastic utensils or plastic bottles can be collected and then through a simple industrial process, making them into usable raw material for the plastic industry. And I think the beauty of using a social enterprise is we can test out whether this model is workable and also creates some jobs which might be needed in this community, Tuen Mun. Evidence shows that the partnership has demonstrated a quick start where we can, through this partnership, establish a small plant here employing in the fullest of time about 100 people, largely from this local community.
But more important, it also helps to establish a network of collection of plastic bottles, both through the agencies, the charitable organization and its network, as well as collection points in the district. And it is also a partnership between the social enterprise and the trade because the materials they produce will fit in, will feed back into the industrial process which could be used by other industries within the same trade. So we hope this will contribute in a small way and also a starting point for more recycling processes to be done locally in Hong Kong.
Ends/Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Issued at HKT 20:00
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