Hong Kong 2006 - The Environment

Water pollution has increased with urban development and population growth, and Hong Kong now produces about 2.8 million cubic metres of sewage every day. In the past, the lack of proper treatment for most of the sewage from older urban areas around Victoria Harbour resulted in poor water quality there but, after the first stage of the Harbour Area Treatment Scheme (HATS) opened at the end of 2001, there has been a marked improvement. The Government plans to implement the second stage of the scheme soon, to ensure that the improvement is sustained.

In addition, pollution control at source has yielded positive effects, and river quality has also improved. The percentage of rivers in the 'good' and 'excellent' categories increased from 34 per cent in 1986 to 81 per cent in 2006, and the percentage in the 'bad' and 'very bad' categories fell from 45 per cent in 1986 to 14 per cent in 2006.

At present, the public sewerage system covers 93 per cent of the population and collects about 2.6 million cubic metres of waste water every day. About 70 per cent of the collected sewage receives chemical or higher levels of treatment before being discharged.

During the first stage of the HATS, sewage was collected from the urban areas of Kowloon, Tsuen Wan, Kwai Tsing, Tseung Kwan O and the northeastern part of Hong Kong Island and transported through a network of deep tunnels to Stonecutters Island for treatment.

The Government intends to implement the second stage in two phases. The first phase (HATS Stage 2A) involves extending the deep tunnel system to bring the untreated sewage from the remaining parts of Hong Kong Island to the Stonecutters Island Sewage Treatment Works. The treatment works is to be expanded to provide centralised chemical treatment for all sewage from the whole of the HATS catchment with fast-track provision of disinfection. The target year for completion of this phase is 2014. Under the second phase (HATS Stage 2B), new biological treatment facilities on a site adjacent to the existing Stonecutters Island Sewage Treatment Works will be built. The timing for this depends on a review in 2010-11. Both phases, however, are subject to the legislature endorsing proposals for the recovery of operating costs through charges for sewage services, in accordance with the polluter pays principle.

More details of the HATS are available on the 'A Clean Harbour for Hong Kong' website, www.cleanharbour.gov.hk.

Apart from HATS, the Government has spent a further $14.5 billion on other sewerage schemes since 1991 and it will spend another $5 billion on schemes over the next five years. This includes sewerage for rural villages. Under the Water Pollution Control (Sewerage) Regulation, the EPD is empowered to direct house owners to connect their waste water pipes to new public sewers. In 2006, public sewers were laid to serve an estimated population of 5 200 people. Since the regulation came into force at the end of 1995, public sewers have been put in place to serve 145 200 people.

All water users who discharge their sewage to public sewers have to pay a basic sewage charge in accordance with the polluter pays principle. Also, 30 trades and industries whose effluent strength well exceeds that of domestic sewage need to pay a trade effluent surcharge to reflect the additional cost of treating their stronger effluent. These charges aim to recover the operation and maintenance costs of sewage collection, treatment, and disposal facilities, while the Government provides funds for construction. The Government's capital investment in this sector is projected to amount to about $20 billion over the next 10 years to build HATS Stage 2A and other new sewage collection and treatment systems, but this is contingent upon the community being willing to share the operating cost in accordance with the polluter pays principle. In December 2006, the Government announced proposals to increase the sewage charge for handling domestic waste water in a step-wise manner over a 10-year time frame. Under these proposals the average bill for domestic accounts would rise from $11 per month now, to $12 per month in 2007, and gradually to $27 per month in 10 years' time. Even after the projected increase Hong Kong's sewage charge will remain among the lowest of the major cities of developed economies.

The Waste Disposal Ordinance bans livestock-keeping in new towns and environmentally sensitive areas. Where they are allowed, livestock farms must have proper waste treatment systems. The Government provides a free livestock waste collection service which collected about a monthly average of 4 694 tonnes of waste during the year.

From the public health and environmental protection points of views, livestock farming in urbanised Hong Kong is not sustainable in the long term. To address the problem, the Government has introduced licence surrender schemes to encourage poultry and pig farmers to cease poultry and pig keeping permanently. Livestock farmers are given ex-gratia payments and the schemes are entirely voluntary. The poultry scheme was introduced in mid-2005 and poultry farmers have up to one year to decide whether or not to join the scheme. The licence surrender scheme for pig farmers was introduced in 2006 and the scheme was open for one year also.

The Government has adopted strict standards for water quality control to protect the health of swimmers at bathing beaches. These standards indicate the pollution level measured in terms of E.coli (the bacterium that can indicate the presence of sewage). The following table shows how beaches were classified in 2006. Beaches in the 'good' and 'fair' categories meet the Government's water quality objective for bathing. In 2006, over 80 per cent of the bathing beaches met the water quality objective.

Beach water quality gradings for open beaches are available on the EPD's home page, hotline and weekly press releases.