Investigation of the most feasible and sustainable solid waste treatment for Hong Kong

Abstract

The solid waste disposal rate is escalating every year. The domestic waste generation now stands as high as 1.45kg per person per day, which is higher than that of cities of comparable economic development level. Hong Kong now relies heavily on landfills to treat solid waste, which is not sustainable. Municipal Solid Waste and Construction Waste create tremendous pressure to landfills. Due to the limited land supply, development of a new Landfill site is almost impossible. To make the problem worst, the landfills will be exhausted in coming few years unless effective waste management measures are implemented immediately. To alleviate the burden of the landfills, a sustainable solid waste treatment should be adopted. An integrated waste management should be used because not a single option of waste treatment and disposal method is better than another, and each option has a role to play, and the overall waste management system chosen should be environmentally and economically sustainable. In order to make the integrated waste management method achievable, certain elements were studied and investigated. For instance, the assessment of waste generation and evaluation of waste reduction, waste separation, collection and transportation of waste, recovery of separated waste by various technologies and final disposal. Besides, the waste management framework, a successful waste management strategy also requires the participation of every sector of the community.