Entitled Rising to Hong Kong’s Waste Challenge: Policies, Best Practices and Opportunities, Business Environment Council’s (BEC) EnviroSeries Conference was held at JW Marriott Hong Kong on 24 May 2013, four days after the Environment Bureau’s announcement of Hong Kong Blueprint for Sustainable Use of Resources 2013-2022. With over 20 local and overseas speakers to share their experiences and views on waste management issues, the Conference engaged an audience of over 150 government officials, business leaders, decision makers, environmental experts and academics in discussions of waste challenges in Hong Kong and in identifying waste solutions.
In his keynote presentation at the start of the Conference, Mr K S Wong, Secretary for the Environment, the HKSAR Government, emphasised the critical waste issues in Hong Kong, and highlighted the directions and the waste disposal reduction target set out in the recently released Blueprint.
As Mr Albert Chan, BEC Board Director and Head of Commercial Banking of HSBC said in the opening address, “…we, as a society, need to get together to find ways to reduce, reuse and treat our domestic, commercial and industrial waste. We need to come up with an integrated and coherent plan, and we all have a role to play.”
Valuable experiences from other Asia cities, including Singapore and Taiwan were shared at the Conference. Ms Vaneeta Bhojwani, Deputy Director (Standards & Productivity), Waste and Resource Management Department, National Environment Agency of Singapore, said recycling and waste-to-energy incineration had helped bring down the need for landfilling in Singapore. In 2012, only 3% of total waste generated went to the landfill. Ir Chen Hung-Yi, Deputy Executive Secretary, Recycling Fund Management Board, Environmental Protection Administration of Taiwan, said that policy-led waste recycling measures had brought about the evolution of Taiwan’s waste management. He recommended Hong Kong to adopt waste charging scheme immediately to instil a culture of minimisation of waste amongst the community.
Some speakers of the Conference expressed their opinions of the Blueprint. They commented that Hong Kong had missed opportunities in the past decade to effectively tackle the waste issue. Whilst it was encouraging to see an aggressive target of reducing waste disposal rate by 40% in 10 years’ time and the laying out of concrete action plans under the Blueprint, policies and measures to quickly reduce waste in Hong Kong would be necessary to enhance the lifespan of landfills.
BEC organises the EnviroSeries Conference twice a year, with the aim of bringing together a diverse combination of stakeholders to address and discuss key issues in sustaining the environment in Hong Kong.
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Photo Caption
(1) Mr K S Wong, Secretary for the Environment, elaborates to the audience the recently published “Hong Kong Blueprint for Sustainable Use of Resources 2013-2022”.
(2) With the support and sponsorships from its members and other parties of the business community, BEC hosts the EnviroSeries Conference twice a year.
(3) Insightful expert sharing and presentations at BEC EnviroSeries Conference attract over 150 participants.
(4) Panel discussions by industry experts inspire the audience with professional views, innovative ideas and successful cases.