Maintaining a clean and hygienic living environment for the public is another key responsibility of the Department. The range of services includes street cleansing; waste collection; management of public toilets and aqua privies, public markets, cemeteries, crematoria and columbaria; and hawker management.
Street Sweeping
The Department and its cleansing contractors have a combined workforce of about 10,100 engaged in the provision of cleansing services, including street sweeping and washing, gully emptying, waste collection, and management of public toilets, aqua privies and refuse collection points.
Street sweeping is essential to keeping the city clean. All streets are swept manually from one to four times a day, depending on the need of the areas. Streets in highly pedestrianised areas or popular tourist spots may be swept up to eight times a day.
In addition to manual labour, mechanical suction sweepers are used to sweep highways, flyovers, central dividers and other busy traffic spots. Special cleansing squads operate on a need basis to clean hygiene black spots. They deploy tipper lorries to remove large abandoned articles and bulky waste that cannot be handled by street sweepers. The squads also undertake urgent clearance operations in the event of traffic accidents or natural disasters.
There are about 20,900 litter containers conveniently located at almost every bus stop, major road junction, ferry concourse and public transport interchange. They are emptied at a frequency of one to eight times daily, depending on the need of the areas. The Department also provides some 510 dog toilets and 1,330 dog excreta collection bins.
Street Washing
Regular street washing is carried out in public places including pavements, service lanes, hawker permitted areas, refuse collection points and black spots. 112 street washing teams from the Department's in-house staff and cleansing services contractors wash heavily patronised pedestrian precincts and hawker/hygiene black spots at least twice weekly; busy areas at least once a week; and other areas on a need basis. For trunk roads with heavy traffic where normal washing is not practicable, flushing is done during non-busy hours.
Gully Emptying
Roadside gullies are cleared manually once every two to four weeks. Gully traps on highways and flyovers are cleared once every six weeks by mechanical gully emptiers after midnight when traffic is light.
About 71% of the Department's street cleansing services have been outsourced. A monitoring and sanction mechanism is in place to ensure that contractors deliver satisfactory services.
Refuse Collection
There are 3,220 refuse collection points (RCPs) in Hong Kong. These include 158 permanent off-street RCPs, which generally operate from 7 am to 3.30 pm, and up to 11.30 pm in busy areas; 25 temporary RCPs; 678 village-type RCPs; and 2,359 bin sites. The RCPs are of different designs to suit actual needs and site constraints. They are used for temporary storage of street litter and household waste pending collection. Whenever circumstances permit, the Department makes improvements to minimise any possible environmental nuisance to nearby residents.
Household waste is collected at least once daily from RCPs. Some 5,220 tonnes of household waste are collected daily - 1,050 from Hong Kong Island, 1,610 from Kowloon and 2,560 from the New Territories and outlying islands. Waste is delivered to refuse transfer stations or landfills managed by the Environmental Protection Department.
The FEHD has outsourced about 72% of its refuse collection services. It has a monitoring and sanction mechanism to ensure that waste collection contractors deliver satisfactory services.
Waste Reduction
In support of the Government's initiative to reduce waste, the Department provides recyclable collection service to 2,577 collection points in public places, schools, clinics and government venues to recover waste paper, metal and plastic materials.
During the year, the average monthly weight of recyclable materials collected was 45,945 kilogrammes of waste paper, 745 kilogrammes of metal and 10,480 kilogrammes of plastic materials.
Wherever possible, retread tyres are used on the departmental vehicle fleet. In the past year, the ratio of brand-new to retread tyres was 1:0.43.
Public Toilets and Aqua Privies
Public toilets are provided mainly at tourist spots and busy areas including ferry concourses, bus termini and picnic areas. Altogether, 539 public toilets are managed by the Department - 95 on Hong Kong Island, 63 in Kowloon, and 381 in the New Territories and on outlying islands. In addition, there are 314 aqua privies in the New Territories and on outlying islands.
Under an on-going Public Toilet Refurbishment/Improvement Programme, 18 projects were completed during the year. The Department is committed to further improving the hygiene, safety and comfort of public toilets. Many public toilets have been installed with new features, such as automatic infrared sensor water taps, hand dryers, urinal bowls and hand basins at children's height, baby changing counters, and separate racks inside toilet compartments for users to place their personal belongings. Air fresheners and free toilet paper are provided in all public toilets. To ensure public toilets are kept clean at all times, the Department employs attendants to station at those with high usage to provide cleansing services.
Pursuant to the government policy of incorporating gender mainstreaming in project design and to meet the needs of both genders, the Department adopts a planning ratio of two female toilet compartments to every male toilet compartment.
The phased programme to convert all aqua privies into flushing toilets by 2013 continued in 2009. All the remaining 26 out of the 50 aqua privies, for which conversion works commenced in November 2007 for completion by May 2009 were converted into flushing toilets in the year. Of the 80 aqua privies, for which works commenced in November 2008 for completion by mid-2010, 51 were converted into flushing toilets in the year. Works for another 90 aqua privies in the following phase also commenced in November 2009 for completion by mid-2011.
For aqua privies that are yet to be converted or with site constraints that restrict physical improvements, the Department has put in use microbial odour-arresting agents to alleviate odour problems. Free toilet paper and liquid soap are provided to the users. A programme to retrofit all aqua privies with electric hand dryers is also in active progress.
Sanitary Nuisances
The Department deals with environmental nuisances, including those caused by water seepage, dripping air-conditioners and accumulation of refuse by issuing advisory letters and statutory Nuisance Notices to ensure abatement. In 2009, the Department handled some 21,700, 17,700 and 6,000 complaint cases about nuisances so caused respectively.
Litter Offences
Officers of the health inspectorate, foreman and hawker control grades of the Department are empowered to issue summonses against people committing cleanliness offences. Apart from day-to-day enforcement action, anti-littering raids are also conducted. During the year, about 590 convictions were recorded.
The Fixed Penalty (Public Cleanliness Offences) Ordinance empowers enforcement officers to issue $1,500 fixed penalty notices for minor cleanliness offences, including littering, spitting, unauthorised display of bills and posters, and dog fouling in public place. In 2009, about 34,000 fixed penalty notices were issued by FEHD staff.
Hawker Management
It has been the Department's policy to reduce street hawking. No new hawker licences have been issued under normal circumstances since 1970s. Eligible licensed hawkers have been relocated into public markets and cooked food centres. Incentives are offered to encourage hawkers either to give up their licences or to move into the above venues. As a result, the number of licensed hawkers, including both fixed pitch and itinerant ones, fell to 7,048 by the end of 2009.
In recent years, there have been growing community expectations on the preservation of local heritage, including hawking activities and open-air bazaars. The Food and Health Bureau and the Department jointly reviewed the hawker licensing policy, including exploring the feasibility of re-issuing hawker licences and relaxing the requirements for the succession and transfer of hawker licences without compromising environmental hygiene. It has also been proposed that the role of District Councils should be enhanced in terms of hawker licensing and hawker bazaar management at the district level. After consulting the Legislative Council Panel on Food Safety and Environmental Hygiene, 18 District Councils, more than 20 hawker associations and relevant stakeholders on the preliminary proposals, the Department issued new Itinerant (Frozen Confectionery) Hawker Licences for selling ice-cream on the streets through open application by members of the public, released adjacent vacant fixed pitches for use by front row licensees and made preparation for the allocation of the remaining vacant pitches to members of the public interested in joining the hawking trade. Subject to the support of the relevant District Councils, the Department would relax the licence succession of Dai Pai Dongs and the transfer restrictions on them so as to help preserve local heritage. In addition, the Department also issued hawker licences to eight bootblack hawkers in Central after consulting the relevant District Council.
The management and control of hawkers is the responsibility of about 2,100 trained staff who are assigned to 191 hawker control teams. Where necessary, hawker handling centres are set up in police stations to facilitate charging of those arrested.
Hawker control staff inspect fixed hawker pitches regularly and regulate the operation of itinerant hawkers to ensure that licensing conditions and relevant legislative provisions are observed. They also take enforcement action to prevent irregularities caused by licensed or illegal hawkers. There were 31,337 convictions for offences related to hawking in 2009.
Lunar New Year Fairs
The Department staged 16 Lunar New Year Fairs in 12 districts from 20 January to 9 February. There were about 2,000 stalls offering commodities ranging from seasonal flowers and plants to traditional food, festive decorations, dry goods and fast food, and services of fortune-telling and lot-decoding. The fairs not only provided additional leisure and shopping places for the citizens and tourists but also added zest to the festivity during the Lunar New Year period.
Public Markets and Cooked Food Centres/Markets
Public markets and cooked food centres or markets serve an important role in meeting public demand for fresh and cooked food and dry goods. There are 79 public markets, with 13,732 stalls offering commodities ranging from fresh food to household items, and 1,029 stalls in 39 cooked food centres and 25 free-standing cooked food markets. By end 2009, 12,104 stalls were let out, with 1,827 stalls vacant, and 830 stalls frozen for designated purposes such as re-siting and renovation. Stalls are let through auction, with stallholders entering into a tenancy agreement with the Department.
To enhance the variety of public market services and make better use of vacant market stalls, the Department introduced eight light refreshment and bakery stalls and 33 service trade stalls in six public markets in June. About 70% of these stalls were let out by end 2009. The Department also put up long-standing vacant stalls for open auction at reduced upset prices set at 80% or 60% of the open market rent since March 2009. By end 2009, over half of these long-standing vacant stalls were successfully let out. In April 2009, Kimberley Street Market, which had a sparse flow of patrons, was closed with the support of the Yau Tsim Mong District Council.
In 2009, the Market Promotion Team carried out market promotion initiatives in selected public markets, including festive activities, cooking demonstrations and decorations on festive occasions, roving exhibitions on topical subjects and thematic talks or workshops. An information booklet on public markets and cooked food markets and a quarterly Market Newsletter were published for wide distribution.
Market staff undertake daily checks to ensure that stallholders observe the law and their tenancy agreement conditions. Health inspectorate officers inspect meat, poultry, fish and cooked food stalls regularly to ensure compliance with relevant legislation and codes of hygiene practices and that food is clean and wholesome. Enforcement action is taken as and when necessary. In 2009, 949 prosecutions were taken against market tenants for breach of statutory provisions and, as a result of investigation into suspected subletting cases, one market tenancy was terminated by the Department while another 11 tenancies were surrendered by the relevant tenants.
Enhanced Measures against Avian Influenza
To prevent the virus from accumulating in retail outlets, the Food Business (Amendment) Regulation was introduced on 2 July 2008 to prohibit overnight stocking of live poultry in retail premises. To protect public health and further minimise the risk of human infection by avian influenza, a buyout package was introduced in July 2008 allowing live poultry retailers to surrender their permission to sell live poultry on a voluntary basis in exchange for an ex-gratia payment. A total of 328 live poultry retailers joined the scheme.
Enhanced Measures against Human Swine Influenza
To combat the spread of human swine influenza in the community, the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council approved funding of $99 million for FEHD to implement a series of special measures to improve the environmental hygiene. The measures include: enhancing cleansing and disinfection services in public markets; stepping up street washing services to rear lanes in the vicinity of licensed food premises, hawker concentrated areas and markets; increasing the frequency of washing and disinfection of aqua privies and public toilets without attendants; providing one-off clean-up services to common areas of private buildings without management bodies; and enhancing the clean-up of environmental hygiene black spots and sustaining the enhanced level of public cleansing services. All these services had been progressively rolled out since 1 August.
On publicity and promotion side, apart from exhibitions, game booths, talks and cooking demonstrations were organised at some 40 public markets, three "Maintain Hygiene for a Healthy Life" Activity Days were held to promote personal and domestic hygiene messages to the public including domestic helpers and new immigrants, and 100,000 copies of a health message booklet in nine Southeast Asian languages were distributed to resident ethnic minorities to enhance their awareness on personal, domestic and environmental hygiene.
Separately, Food and Health Bureau, Department of Health and this Department jointly published the "Keep Clean Be Healthy" booklet and three million copies of the booklet were printed for distribution to the public and households of the territory to tie in with the launch of "Clean Hong Kong Day" on 10 May 2009.
Cemeteries, Crematoria and Columbaria
The FEHD manages six crematoria and 11 public cemeteries for the provision of cremation and burial service to the public. It also monitors 28 private cemeteries in accordance with the provisions of the Private Cemeteries Regulation. After six years, human remains buried in public cemeteries have to be exhumed to be either cremated or reburied in an urn cemetery.
The Government's policy is to promote cremation over burial. During the year, about 89% (36,486) of dead bodies were cremated. The Department is upgrading cremation facilities at Wo Hop Shek Crematorium and Cape Collinson Crematorium to increase capacity and efficiency to meet the increasing demand for cremation services. Environmentally friendly features for these facilities are often introduced.
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, Wan Chai and Cheung Sha Wan Government Offices in Kowloon.
Some 167,900 niches are provided at affordable prices for the storage of ashes in eight public columbaria, including about 18,500 new niches in the Diamond Hill columbarium which were completed in 2009. To alleviate the shortage of public niches, the Government promotes the options of scattering cremated human ashes at sea and in Gardens of Remembrance. There were 279 cases of scattering ashes at sea in 2009 as compared to 243 cases in 2008; and 650 cases of scattering ashes in the Gardens of Remembrance in 2009 as compared to 383 cases in 2008. To promote the practice of scattering ashes at sea, the FEHD is making preparation for implementing a pilot scheme to provide free ferry service to facilitate members of the public to scatter human ashes at sea in early 2010.