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, public markets, cemeteries, crematoria and columbaria; and hawker management.
Street Sweeping
The Department and its cleansing contractors have a combined workforce of about 13,000 engaged in the provision of cleansing services, including street sweeping and washing, gully emptying, waste collection, and management of public toilets and refuse collection points. About 81% 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.
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 sweeping, mechanical sweepers are used to sweep high speed roads, flyovers and central dividers. The Department has put on trial in Tai Po and Yuen Long the use of mini mechanical sweepers to clean roads with low traffic. Special cleansing squads operate on a need basis to clean refuse dumping black spots. They deploy 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.
A total of about 11,700 litter containers are located at public places including bus stops, major road junctions, ferry concourses and public transport interchanges to facilitate pedestrians' depositing of litter. They are emptied at a frequency of one to eight times daily, depending on the need of the areas. The Department also provides some 440 dog latrines and 1,900 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 hygiene blackspots. A total of 160 street washing teams from the Department's in-house staff and cleansing service contractors provide day and night street washing services at a frequency ranging from on a need basis to daily depending on the need of the areas. The Department has introduced pressure washer surface cleaners for street cleansing to remove stubborn stains speedily. 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.
Refuse Collection
There are 3,008 refuse collection points (RCPs) in Hong Kong. These include 164 permanent off-street RCPs, 8 temporary RCPs, 876 village-type RCPs/ RCPs with temporary structures, and 1,960 bin sites. About 6,130 tonnes of household and street waste is collected daily and delivered to refuse transfer stations or landfills managed by the Environmental Protection Department. The Department has outsourced about 79% of its refuse collection services. A monitoring and sanction mechanism is in place to ensure that waste collection contractors deliver satisfactory services.
Public Toilets
Public toilets are provided mainly at tourist spots and busy areas. Altogether, 807 public flush toilets are managed by the Department - 90 on Hong Kong Island, 60 in Kowloon, and 657 in the New Territories and on outlying islands. In addition, there are 35 aqua privies in the New Territories and on outlying islands.
To ensure that public toilets are kept clean at all times, the Department employs attendants to station at those with high usage or located in tourist spots to provide immediate cleansing services, in addition to regular deep cleansing operations. We also actively explore the use of new technologies to improve the hygiene of public toilets. The Department is developing a "Smart Toilet System" and has been trying it out in two FEHD Public Toilets since May 2021.
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 2021, the Department handled about 43,200, 30,800 and 9,500 related complaint cases respectively.
Litter Offences and Public Cleanliness
Officers of the Health Inspector, 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 conducted. During the year, about 3,730 convictions were recorded.
The Fixed Penalty (Public Cleanliness and Obstruction) Ordinance empowers enforcement officers to issue $1,500 fixed penalty notices for minor cleanliness offences, including littering, spitting, unauthorised display of bills or posters, and dog fouling in public place. In 2021, about 50,900 fixed penalty notices were issued by FEHD staff against these cleanliness offences.
To address the environmental hygiene problems caused by frequent deposits of refuse and waste at illegal refuse deposit blackspots in individual districts, the Department installed Internet Protocol (IP) cameras at illegal refuse deposit blackspots in the territory to curb illegal deposits of refuse. The Department had established 40 Dedicated Enforcement Teams (DETs) by the end of 2021. DETs use the footage of IP cameras to investigate cases and develop strategies for operations. DETs also distribute leaflets and warning notices to deliver health messages to the public.
Hawker Management
It has been the standing policy of the Administration to satisfactorily regulate licensed hawking activities and take enforcement action against illegal hawkers. Apart from the sale of cooked food or restricted food without a licence, or conducting hawking activities in main thoroughfares, areas where there are high pedestrian flow or places where there are repeated complaints, enforcement staff generally adopt a "warning first, followed by prosecution" strategy. The Department will continue with the above strategy in monitoring on-street hawking activities.
As at the end of 2021, there were 5,268 hawkers carrying out business in licensed fixed-pitch stalls and 330 licensed itinerant hawkers.
The management and control of hawkers is the responsibility of about 2,300 trained staff who are assigned to about 190 squads of the hawker control team.
Hawker control staff inspect fixed hawker pitches regularly and regulate the operation of itinerant hawkers to ensure that licensing conditions and relevant legal provisions are observed. They also take enforcement action to prevent irregularities caused by licensed or illegal hawkers. There were 5,883 convictions for offences related to hawking in 2021.
With the release of vacant hawker pitches due to completion of the Assistance Scheme for Hawkers in Fixed-Pitch Hawker Areas and of those within or outside the hawker areas falling vacant due to other reasons, the Department identified 435 vacant hawker pitches suitable for re-allocation and issuance of licences, which were open in late September 2019 for application by persons who were interested in hawking and able to meet relevant application requirements. By the mid-July 2021, all 435 vacant pitches had been selected. A list of eligible applicants who have not been allocated a pitch will be kept for 3 years counting from November 2019 for use in the allocation of vacant pitches that can be made available within that 3-year period.
Shop Front Extension Problem
Illegal extension of business from shops is a street management issue. A number of government departments are involved and have their respective roles to play. The Department was also committed to participating in joint-departmental efforts to tackle the shop front extension problem, and taking stringent enforcement actions. The Department would institute direct prosecutions against habitual offenders. Depending on situation, seizure actions would also be taken to achieve a stronger deterrent effect. A total of five shop front extension control task force teams were set up to strengthen enforcement actions at shop front extension blackspots across the territory.
In 2021, about 3,700 prosecutions and 14,766 fixed penalty notices were instituted against shop front extensions.
In recent years, there is growing concern on the illegal extension of business from shops to carriageways. To tackle this kind of obstruction problem, the Department and the Police have introduced a trial scheme since the third quarter of 2021 in Kowloon City, Kwun Tong and Tsuen Wan where joint operations are mounted in a persistent manner to solve the problem. The Police will order owners to remove their goods or articles which have caused obstruction, and if the obstruction is not voluntarily removed, the Department will remove it. Apart from being prosecuted, the owner of the goods or articles has to bear the removal costs.
Lunar New Year Fairs
Due to COVID-19, there were no Lunar New Year Fairs in 2021. Instead, the Department set up points of sale (POS) of New Year flowers at 15 sites originally designated for the Lunar New Year fairs from 6 to 11 February. There were 545 stalls offering flowers and plants for citizens to purchase during the period. The Department also set up a POS at Chui Tin Street Soccer Pitch in Sha Tin for 32 dry goods stalls to open from 9 to 26 February, with their operating hours matching the opening hours of Che Kung Temple.
Public Markets and Cooked Food Venues
The FEHD is in charge of 74 wet markets, with about 13,560 stalls offering commodities ranging from fresh food to household items, and about 960 stalls in 39 cooked food centres and 23 free-standing cooked food markets. As of end 2021, 11,881 stalls were let out, 455 stalls were vacant, and 1,219 stalls frozen for designated purposes such as re-siting and renovation. Stalls are normally let through auction.
In 2021, the Department conducted promotional activities to enhance patronage of public markets, including various festive decorations and celebration activities during Lunar New Year, Tuen Ng and Mid-Autumn Festivals and Christmas/ New Year and thematic events, as well as display and publication of multi-lingual posters/booklets which provide updated market information.
The Government launched the second round of the subsidy scheme for promotion of contactless payment in public markets under the Anti-epidemic Fund, and extended the scope to cover licensed hawkers. After the close of application on 30 June 2021, the Department received a total of 2,969 applications.
Health inspectorate officers and market staff undertake regular checks to ensure that stall operators observe the law, the codes of hygiene practices and tenancy conditions. In 2021, 1,343 prosecutions were instituted against market stall operators for breach of statutory provisions.
Cemeteries, Crematoria and Columbaria
The Department manages six government crematoria, 10 public cemeteries and 11 public columbaria for the provision of cremation and burial services to the public. Among them, Lai Chi Yuen Columbarium on Mui Wo Lantau Island, Tsang Tsui Garden of Remembrance (GoR) in Tuen Mun and The Garden of Forever Love at Cape Collinson Columbarium were commissioned on 1 January, 1 March and 19 August 2021 respectively. Lai Chi Yuen Columbarium provides 790 standard extendable niches for qualified residents of Islands District. Tsang Tsui Garden of Remembrance covers an area of 4,800 square metres and is used for scattering ashes. The Garden of Forever Love at Cape Collinson Columbarium provides 400 keeping spaces for abortuses. The Department also monitors the management of 27 private cemeteries in accordance with the provisions of the Private Cemeteries Regulation.
The Government's policy is to promote cremation over burial. During the year, about 93.34% (48,106) of deceased were cremated.
For public convenience, the booking of cremation sessions at all of the six public crematoria, namely Cape Collinson, Diamond Hill, Fu Shan, Wo Hop Shek, Kwai Chung and Cheung Chau, can either be made in person or through licensed undertakers of burials at Wu Chung House in Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island and Cheung Sha Wan Government Offices in Kowloon, or be made online. At present, some 290,000 niches are occupied in 11 public columbaria.
Private Columbaria
Pursuant to the Private Columbaria Ordinance (Cap. 630) (the Ordinance), a person must obtain a specified instrument, namely a licence, an exemption or a temporary suspension of liability in order to operate, keep, manage or in any other way have control of a private columbarium.
The Private Columbaria Licensing Board (Licensing Board) is the statutory body responsible for regulating the operation and management of private columbaria. During the year, the Licensing Board approved two licence applications, approved in principle another licence application and 22 applications for temporary suspension of liability, and refused specified instruments applications from 3 private columbaria. As at end of 2021, 223 applications for specified instruments submitted by 92 private columbaria were being processed by the Licensing Board.
The Private Columbaria Affairs Office provides executive support to the Licensing Board and handles matters relating to the implementation of the Ordinance. Apart from the processing of applications for specified instruments, it also conducts inspections and takes enforcement actions to combat against the illegal operation of private columbaria. During the year, about 390 site inspections and investigation on about 60 cases of suspected contravention of the Ordinance were conducted, resulting in making arrest in two cases and prosecution against the operator of one columbarium.
Green Burial
The Department has been actively promoting sustainable means of burial by encouraging the public to scatter ashes of their ascendants in its 13 Gardens of Remembrance or in designated Hong Kong waters. In January 2010, the Department started providing free ferry service for families of the deceased to scatter ashes at sea. There were 906 cases of scattering ashes at sea and 6,544 cases of scattering ashes in the Gardens of Remembrance in 2021. In addition to the free ferry service for scattering cremated ashes at sea, the Department also arranges memorial sailings during the Ching Ming Festival and Chung Yeung Festival for the public to pay tribute to their loved ones whose ashes were scattered at sea. By 2021, more than 6,800 participants from about 2,700 families had joined the trips.
The Department provides an Internet Memorial Service (IMS) for members of the public to pay tribute and express condolences to their lost loved ones at any time and from anywhere online through a dedicated webpage (www.memorial.gov.hk). A mobile version (m.memorial.gov.hk) and a mobile app are also available. By the end of 2021, some 24,000 users had registered and about 21,000 memorial webpages had been created. Besides, the Department launched the Green Burial Central Register in January 2019 to encourage the public to plan ahead and share their green burial wish with their family members. By the end of 2021, 8,080 members of the public registered their wish for green burial.