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 3,800 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. Since the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in early 2003, there has been growing awareness in the community of the importance of keeping a clean and healthy environment. In support of the Team Clean report on measures to improve environmental hygiene in Hong Kong, the Department provided the following enhanced cleansing and cleansing-related services:
- intensified cleansing and washing of public places and environmental blackspots;
- cleansing and washing of private lanes, common parts of old tenement buildings; and undertaking minor repair works and lime-washing at these places;
- enhanced rodent and mosquito control works; and
- enhanced cleansing of markets, cooked food centres, hawker sites and removal of bagged refuse on streets.
Apart from 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 and pick-up vans 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 47 street washing vehicles which operate day and night with a frequency varying from daily, for busy thoroughfares, 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 onto surface channels and central dividers.
Roadside gullies are generally cleared manually every two weeks. Larvicidal oil is applied on a weekly basis 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 contractors' mechanical gully emptiers to provide the 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 and public transport interchanges 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 454 dog latrines and 697 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 2,920 refuse collection points (RCPs) in Hong Kong. They include 157 permanent off-street RCPs, 95 temporary RCPs, 812 village-type RCPs, and 1,856 bin sites. RCPs are of different designs according to the actual need and site availability. They are used for temporary 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 7am to 3.30pm, but can stay open up to 11.30pm in busy areas. Waste collected at RCPs is removed by a fleet of 224 refuse collection vehicles. About 5,899 tonnes of household waste are collected daily - 1,268 tonnes from Hong Kong Island, 1,851 tonnes from Kowloon, and 2,780 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 1,938 recycling points in public places, schools, clinics, 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 57,113 kilograms of waste paper, 943 kilograms of aluminium cans and 17,167 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 51 toilets 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 - 94 on Hong Kong Island, 61 in Kowloon, and 151 in the New Territories and on outlying islands. In addition, there are 551 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 28 public bathhouses - seven on Hong Kong Island, 11 in Kowloon and 10 in the New Territories and on outlying islands.
Sanitary Nuisances
The Department deals with environmental nuisances, including dripping air-conditioners, accumulation of refuse, defective drainage pipes and water seepage in buildings by issuing advisory letters and statutory 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, over 1,500 summonses were issued against littering offences with total fines of more than $1.8 million.
The Fixed Penalty (Public Cleanliness Offences) Ordinance, Cap. 570 came into effect on 27 May 2002. The legislation empowers the enforcement officers to issue $600 fixed penalty notices in respect of minor cleanliness offences, including littering, spitting, unauthorised display of bills and posters and dog fouling in public places.
To strengthen the regulation and improve public cleanliness, the $600 fine under the fixed penalty system was increased to $1,500 from 26 June 2003. During the year, over 17,000 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 being offered to encourage hawkers either to give up their licences or to move into the venues. As a result of the measures, the number of licensed hawkers - both fixed-pitch and itinerant - fell to 8,270 by the end of 2003.
During the year, 138 itinerant hawkers voluntarily surrendered their licences in return for either a $30,000 ex-gratia payment or to operate a vacant fixed pitch or a market stall at a concessionary rent. Meanwhile, five cooked food stall licensees voluntarily surrendered their licences for $60,000 ex-gratia payments as part of an on-going buy-back scheme.
A trained staff of some 2,200 is responsible for the management and control of hawkers. The members are assigned to 191 hawker control teams. Support facilities include control centres and seized goods stores. Where necessary, hawker-handling centres are set up in police stations to facilitate charging formalities of arrested hawkers.
Environmental hygiene staff members inspect fixed pitches regularly to ensure that licensing conditions and relevant legislative provisions are observed. They also take necessary control action against itinerant hawkers whenever they are found plying their trade in the streets. Where necessary, they take enforcement action to deter irregularities; such action resulted in 1,595 convictions in 2003.
As a temporary measure in view of the prevailing economic conditions, the Hawker Control Teams continue to adopt the revised enforcement strategies against hawking activities by taking a more tolerant approach to hawkers who sell non-food dry goods.
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 81 public markets, with 14,831 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. Four new markets are 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.
Members of the market staff undertake daily checks to ensure stallholders observe the relevant provisions of their tenancy agreements and the law. Health inspectorate officers also conduct regular inspections of meat, poultry, fish and cooked food stalls to ensure that the food is clean and wholesome under the relevant codes of hygiene practices and legislation. Whenever conditions warrant, enforcement action is taken. There were 1,940 convictions in 2003.
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 82.8 per cent of all bodies - 30,161 - 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.
In view of the ageing population and increasing demand for cremation services, plans are in hand to upgrade cremation facilities.
New Facilities
The new facilities of the Kwai Chung Crematorium were commissioned in late March 2003, while those for Fu Shan Crematorium are scheduled for commissioning in mid-2004.
Whenever practicable, environmentally friendly facilities with increased capacity and efficiency for cremations will be introduced to minimise environmental nuisances. In this connection, the Department is planning to replace the cremators at Diamond Hill and Wo Hop Shek.
There is also a phased programme in place to upgrade service halls of crematoria, with the Department planning to refurbish the Christian service halls in the Cape Collinson Crematorium in 2004.
For public convenience, the booking of cremation sessions at six public crematoria - 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.