Maintaining a clean and hygienic living environment for the people of Hong Kong is one of the Department's key responsibilities. The range of services it provides in this respect covers street cleansing, waste collection, the provision of toilets, public markets and crematoria, and hawker management.
Street Cleansing
A departmental workforce of about 4,000 is deployed on the daily task of sweeping and washing streets, collecting waste and managing public toilets, public bathhouses and waste collection points.
Street sweeping is an essential part of keeping the city clean and sweepers can be seen working from daybreak until late evening. The frequency depends on the needs in a particular area, and ranges from once a day to eight times a day around the clock. In the main commercial and tourist areas, streets are swept about four to eight times a day.
A series of new cleansing initiatives addressing district concerns has been implemented since November 2001 which includes provision of static street cleaners at busy spots for the instantaneous removal of litter, the removal of illegal bills or posters, and roving cleansing teams for clearing hygiene black spots.
Apart from the manual sweeping, the contractor's mechanical sweepers are also used to cleanse highways, flyovers, central dividers and other high-use traffic areas. Special cleansing squads are deployed on a need basis to clean up hygiene black spots. The squads are provided with lorries, pick-up vans and street-washing vehicles at their disposal and are actively involved in major operations to remove large abandoned articles and bulky items that cannot be handled by street sweepers. They also undertake urgent clearing operations as in the event of a traffic accident or natural disaster.
To keep pavements, lanes, hawker areas and on-street refuse collection points clean, street washing is required. On top of the street washing service provided by the cleansing contractors, the Department maintains a total of 53 street washing vehicles which operate day and night with a frequency varying from daily, for busy thoroughfares and markets and hawker areas, to as necessary for village roads. In the case of trunk roads with very heavy traffic flows, street flushing is achieved through spraying pressurised water on to surface channels and central dividers.
Roadside gullies are cleared manually every two weeks. Larvicidal oil is added afterwards as a precaution against mosquito breeding. Gully traps on highways and flyovers are cleared once every six weeks with specialised equipment. The Department currently employs eight in-house mechanical gully emptiers and six contractor's mechanical gully emptiers to provide gully emptying services. They are normally employed after midnight when traffic is light.
Refuse Collection
Litter containers are conveniently located at almost every bus stop, major road junctions, ferry concourses, transport interchanges and Mass Transit Railway/Kowloon Canton Railway station exits in Hong Kong. They are emptied at a frequency commensurate with their usage, ranging from four to eight times a day. In total, there are some 18,000 litter containers, along with about 426 dog latrines and 556 dog excreta collection bins for the convenience of dog owners.
To encourage the public to monitor the performance of cleansing staff provided by the Department and contractors, the emptying frequency of litter containers is displayed. A hotline number, 2868 0000 has also been printed on all new litter containers for public enquiries and complaints.
There are 2,924 refuse collection points (RCPs) in Hong Kong. They include 157 permanent off-street RCPs, 95 temporary RCPs, 814 village-type RCPs, and 1,858 bin sites. RCPs are of different designs according to the actual need and site availability. These RCPs are used for temporarily storage of street waste and household waste pending collection. The Department will improve the existing waste collection services whenever circumstances permit to minimise any possible environmental nuisance to nearby residents.
Household waste is collected at least once a day at public RCPs, which generally operate from 7 am to 3.30 pm, but can stay open up to 11.30 pm in busy areas. Waste collected at RCPs is removed by a fleet of 387 refuse collection vehicles. About 5,955 tonnes of household waste are collected daily - 1,330 tonnes from Hong Kong Island, 1,890 tonnes from Kowloon, and 2,735 tonnes from the New Territories and outlying islands. Waste is then taken to refuse transfer stations or landfills managed by the Environmental Protection Department for disposal.
Waste Reduction
In support of the Government's Waste Reduction Framework Plan 1998-2007, the Department has provided collection services to 1,027 recycling points in public places and government venues for the collection of waste paper, aluminium cans and plastic bottles. Space will be reserved in new RCPs to set up a Material Recovery Point for the separate collection and storage of recyclable materials.
Public support for this initiative is shown by the rise in the number of recyclables collected. During the year, the average weight of recyclable materials collected per month was 28,496 kilograms of waste paper, 950 kilograms of aluminium cans and 12,150 kilograms of plastic bottles.
The Department is now exploring the feasibility of using retread tyres for its vehicle fleet in response to the Government's initiative on waste reduction and environmental protection. The plan aims to reduce the number of used tyres and the maintenance costs of vehicles and to achieve further waste reduction. In the initial stage, only refuse collection vehicles have been selected for trial. If successful, the arrangement will be extended to other vehicles.
Public Toilets and Bathhouses
The Department has embarked on a refurbishment programme to upgrade old public toilets. During the year, facilities at 35 toilets (27 in the urban area and eight in the New Territories) were upgraded under the scheme. The Department remains committed to seeing further improvements in hygiene, safety and comfort. Free toilet paper is provided in all public toilets.
Public toilets are primarily provided at ferry concourses, bus termini, picnic areas, tourist spots and other busy areas. Altogether, 306 public toilets are managed by the Department - 99 on Hong Kong Island, 67 in Kowloon, and 140 in the New Territories and on outlying islands. In addition, there are 569 aqua privies in the New Territories and on outlying islands.
Public bathhouses, meanwhile, are provided in some older districts where poor housing accommodation still exists. There are 33 public bathhouses - 10 on Hong Kong Island, 13 in Kowloon and 10 in the New Territories and on outlying islands.
Sanitary Nuisances
The Department deals with environmental nuisances, such as dripping air-conditioners, accumulation of refuse, and defective drainage pipes and consequential water seepage in buildings, by issuing advisory letters and statutory Nuisance Notices.
Litter Offences
All officers of the Health Inspectorate, Foreman and Hawker Control Grades of the Department are empowered to issue summonses against litter offenders. Apart from the day-to-day enforcement action, anti-littering blitz operations are also conducted. During the year, 10,680 summonses were issued, with offenders fined a total of $6.96 million. The average fine imposed by the Court was $652.
The Legislative Council passed the Fixed Penalty (Public Cleanliness Offences) Bill on July 12, 2001. The new legislation covers offences of littering, spitting, unauthorised display of bills and posters as well as dog fouling in public places. Anyone who commits the offences will be liable for a fixed penalty of $600. During the year, 8,934 fixed penalty notices were issued.
Hawker Management
As part of the Department's policy of reducing street hawking, no new licences are issued and eligible licensed hawkers are being relocated into public markets and cooked food centres/markets. In addition, incentives are offered to encourage hawkers either to give up their licences or to move into the venues. As a result of these measures, the number of licensed hawkers - both fixed-pitch and itinerant - fell to 8,575 by the end of 2002.
During the year, 33 itinerant hawkers voluntarily surrendered their licences in return for either $30,000 ex-gratia payment or operating a vacant fixed pitch or a market stall at a concessionary rent. Meanwhile, one cooked food stall licensee voluntarily surrendered his licence for $60,000 ex-gratia payment as part of an on-going buy-back scheme.
The management and control of hawkers rests in the hands of a trained staff force of about 2,500, who are assigned to 194 hawker control teams. Support facilities include control centres and seized goods stores. When necessary, hawker-handling centres are set up in police stations to facilitate charging formalities of arrested hawkers.
Environmental hygiene staff inspect fixed pitches regularly to ensure that the licensing conditions and relevant legislative provisions are observed. They also take necessary control action on itinerant hawkers whenever they are found plying their trade in streets. Where necessary, they take enforcement action to deter irregularities; such action resulted in 2,084 convictions in 2002.
Since December 2001, the Department has revised the enforcement strategies against hawking activities by taking a more tolerant approach to hawkers who sell non-food dry goods in view of the prevailing economic conditions.
Public Markets and Cooked Food Centres/Markets
The provision of public markets and cooked food centres/markets plays an important part in improving the overall environment in Hong Kong. There are 82 public markets, with 15,103 stalls offering commodities ranging from fresh food to household items, and 1,048 stalls in 38 cooked food centres and 24 free-standing cooked food markets. One new market in North District was opened in July, with another four under planning or construction.
All stalls are let through auction, with stallholders entering into a tenancy agreement. Under the existing policy, the majority of stallholders are enjoying a reduction in rent.
A Market Manager Pilot Scheme has been put on trial in four markets - Fa Yuen Street Market, Hung Hom Market, North Kwai Chung Market and Smithfield Market. The purpose of the Scheme is to assess whether the management of public markets can be improved by hiring dedicated personnel with higher qualifications and more professional management experience from the private sector to inject new thinking and ideas into the management of public markets.
Market staff makes daily checks to ensure stallholders observe the relevant provisions of their tenancy agreements and the law. Health inspectorate officers also conduct regular inspections to meat, poultry, fish and cooked food stalls to ensure that the food is clean and wholesome through the observance of relevant codes of hygiene practices and legislation. Whenever conditions warrant, they take enforcement action for contravention of relevant legislation. In 2002, there were 1,509 convictions.
Cemeteries and Crematoria
The Department provides efficient and dignified cremation or burial services through six crematoria and 11 public cemeteries. It also manages and monitors 28 private cemeteries. It is the Government's policy to promote cremation over burial, and during the year more than 82.9 per cent of all cadavers - 28,434 - were cremated. Some 137,939 niches are provided at reasonable prices for the storage of ashes in eight Gardens of Remembrance.
After six years, human remains buried in public cemeteries have to be exhumed, to be either cremated or reburied in an urn cemetery. Owing to the low utilisation rate of the Hung Hom Public Funeral Parlour and the high demand of funeral services, the Department contracted out the funeral services of the Hung Hom Public Funeral Parlour in early 2002.
In view of the ageing population and increasing demand for cremation services, plans are in hand to upgrade cremation facilities.
New Facilities
Funds have been secured for reprovisioning four existing cremators at the Kwai Chung Crematorium. The new facilities will be commissioned in early 2003.
Whenever practicable, environmentally friendly facilities with increased capacity and speed for cremation will be introduced to enhance efficiency and minimise environmental nuisances. In this connection, the Department is actively planning for the replacement of cremators at the Fu Shan Crematorium and the Diamond Hill Crematorium.
There is also a phased programme in place to upgrade service halls of crematoria. Refurbishment of the Christian service halls in the Cape Collinson Crematorium will commence in 2003.
For public convenience, booking of cremation sessions at six public crematoria at Cape Collinson, Diamond Hill, Fu Shan, Wo Hop Shek, Kwai Chung and Cheung Chau can be made in person at Wu Chung House in Wan Chai and Cheung Sha Wan Government Offices in Kowloon.