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July 12th, 2012:

Still adjusting | The great green swindle

Clear the Air says:

So our former Environment Minister Edward Yau and  his ‘Greentech’ hangers-on for a free Europe jaunt at public expense visited Denmark to learn about their ‘advanced’ waste treatment bonfire.

In fact Denmark is way behind Hong Kong in recycling, percentage wise,  they have just realised their incinerators are causing irreparable CO2 climate damage (let alone the other noxious emissions), they do not have enough waste to burn so have to import it to keep their incinerators running – and our ‘Greentech’ mission went there to learn something, or for  detkolde bord (smorgasbord)?

Read on and be amazed …………………

http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201204/25/P201204250528.htm

SEN and green tech mission start visit to Denmark (with photos)
********************************************************

The Secretary for the Environment, Mr Edward Yau, and a green tech mission from Hong Kong started their visit to Denmark in Copenhagen today (April 25, Copenhagen time). While in Copenhagen they will take a look at the city’s advanced waste treatment technology and explore possibilities for co-operation in green business.  The mission first visited Amagerforbrænding, which runs Copenhagen’s largest incineration plant. They toured its recycling station and the incineration plant to learn more about the city’s waste treatment facilities and technology for generating energy from waste.

THE COPENHAGEN POST

Still adjusting | The great green swindle

Justin Cremer      http://cphpost.dk/commentary/cph-post-voices/still-adjusting-great-green-swindle

April 7, 2012 – 07:37

A proud native of the American state of Iowa, Justin Cremer has been living in Copenhagen since June 2010. In addition to working at the CPH Post, he balances fatherhood, struggling with the Danish language and keeping up with the ever-changing immigration rules.

Just days after Denmark put through its much-heralded energy plan, resulting in plenty of back-slapping among politicians and more than a fair amount of praise in the international press, Eurostat figures revealed that the average Dane produced 673 kilos of garbage in 2010, putting Denmark behind only Cyprus and Luxembourg when it comes to trash.The figures also revealed that a mere 23 percent of Danish household trash is recycled, about half as much as the Germans.

These numbers were not in the least bit surprising. Ever since my first visit to Denmark, I was struck by how hard it was to recycle, particularly plastic. I was so accustomed to recycling my plastic one gallon milk containers (that’s roughly 3.8litres, my European friends) that I found it incredulous that milk here came in cardboard packages destined for the trash. Though, to be fair, I found it even more unbelievable that the said containers only hold one litre of milk, meaning a lifetime of going to the store every second day.

Like most of the outside world, I came here having bought into the notion that Denmark was a green paradise. Why then, was I throwing things in the trash that back home were recycled? “Bare rolig du,” I was told. In Denmark, everything is burnt and the energy is then used to heat homes. It’s a beautiful system, can’t you see that?

Actually, no. A study by the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) last year revealed that Denmark’s carbon dioxide emissions were double what was originally thought and the nation was exceeding the carbon dioxide goals under the Kyoto Protocol. The culprit? That same rubbish incineration programme that had been praised to the heavens.

But, but, but, it’s not the incineration that’s the problem, experts argued. It’s that too much plastic gets burnt – that same plastic that is incredibly inconvenient to recycle.

Being a good, environmentally-conscious world citizen, I tried to do my small part. For months, I had been dutifully separating my plastic and cardboard, placing them in the requisite clear plastic sacks, and storing them in the shed until the infrequent storskrald (big trash) pick-up days.

Only when my wife happened to be outside on pick-up day and struck up a conversation with one of the collectors, did I come to realise that all of that was just burnt anyway. Yes, my plastic that had been rinsed and separated, my cardboard that had been neatly bundled. Burnt. All of it. In incineration plants that, according to DTU’s numbers, produce some 700,000 more tonnes of carbon dioxide than previously thought.

Rather ironically, with the amount of emissions this incorrectly-labelled ‘green’ solution pumps into the atmosphere, there sure are some particular rules about it. Just last week, the collectors refused to take my trash because there was loose kitty litter inside. Gosh, did I feel terrible that I hadn’t put it in an extra unnecessary plastic sack to put within the larger sack so that it all could be burnt and added to the air pollution. My bad, y’all.

Hopefully, though, the attitudes towards incineration and recycling are beginning to change. A year-long pilot programme inAmager revealed last summer that up to 30 percent of the household rubbish currently being burned is recyclable or unfit for burning. Based on that programme, Copenhagen’s technical and environmental department, Teknik- ogMiljøforvaltningen (TMF), announced a new sortable recycling programme that it expects will reduce carbon emissions by 1,400 tonnes per year. The programme was due to begin this month, but a call to TMF last week revealed that it had been pushed back to sometime in the autumn.

Denmark has done an amazing job of presenting itself as an environmental leader. The strategy seems to be that if you dotyour countryside and shorelines with enough wind turbines, you’ll convince the world that you’re ‘green’. Largely, it’s worked. And with the newly-announced plan to wean Denmark off fossil fuels by 2050, the country will continue to be perceived as on the cutting edge of green technology. But when residents can’t conveniently recycle in their homes and instead pile up obscene amounts of trash that, once incinerated, produce an emissions-laden carbon bomb, it gives a whole new meaning to the line so proudly displayed on DSB’s trains: “It’s not a question of green, but how green.” And just how green can a country be when in the year 2012 it still hasn’t fully embraced recycling?

THE COPENHAGEN POST

Incinerators: better than landfills, but a recycling loser

Erica Cooperberg        http://cphpost.dk/news/local/incinerators-better-landfills-recycling-loser

July 8, 2012 – 08:00

Burning rubbish provides energy for households, but also comes with a price: it makes people complacent about their trash disposal

Plans to build a new futuristic incinerator – complete with ski slope – were just too grand for the city

For the five and a half million individuals residing in Denmark, waste is a perpetual problem, but it is not one that is being ignored. However, depending on who you ask, the nation’s chosen disposal method – incineration – is either an ‘environmentally-friendly’ end station, or just a step in the right direction.

While 42 percent of Danish waste is recycled, according to official statistics, the majority, 54 percent, is burned in a process that converts waste into new forms of useful energy. In Denmark’s case, that means that instead of being sent to landfills, rubbish is burned to produce heat and electricity at what are known as waste-to-energy plants.

Amagerforbrænding, Denmark’s second-largest waste company, handles approximately ten percent of the country’s waste. That trash either winds up at one of 12 recycling stations or at its waste-to-energy plant in Amager.

Jonas Nedenskov, an engineer with Amagerforbrænding, explained that the plant incinerates over 400,000 tonnes of waste per year, which is converted into “climate-friendly energy” that supplies 120,000 households with heat in the form of forced hot water and 50,000 households with electricity.

But Amagerforbrænding isn’t just burning waste; recycling is a large part of the company’s environmental efforts, and some 85 percent of the waste received at the recycling stations can be reused.

Amagerforbrænding hopes it can encourage people to recycle more. “Our task is to ensure that the collection and sorting of the many different plastics is as easy as possible,” Nedenskov said. Its latest initiative, to promote plastic recycling, is being carried out in co-operation with the city of Copenhagen.

Although incineration is a more environmentally-friendly process than landfilling, critics say it isn’t as green as its supporters make it out to be.

The process includes the emission of unhealthy toxins into the air, which is a concern to employees, the community directly surrounding the plant and the greater community.

Amagerforbrænding, according to Nedenskov, seeks to minimise the amount of toxins it releases by filtering its emissions to satisfy air quality requirements put out by environment agency Miljøstyrelsen.

But while emissions can be scrubbed, incineration’s other by-product is more difficult to deal with. After trash is burned, the leftover slag, made up mostly of metal, is unusable for anything other than road-building, contended Christian Poll of nature conservation society DN.

Essentially, the incinerators just “transform waste into concentrated material”, Poll said. “Those supporting incineration often forget to tell that story.”

While Poll agreed that incineration is “much better than landfilling, like we used 20 years ago”, Denmark should instead encourage people first and foremost to reduce the amount of waste they producereuse what they can, and then to recycle as much of the rest as possible.

A dispute between Amagerforbrænding and CONCITO, an environmental policy think-tank, surrounds this issue – Amagerforbrænding wishes to build a new incineration facility, while CONCITO argues that it is not entirely necessary.

While it does not support the current building proposals for the facility, CONCITO does back the facility’s overall expansion.

“We want the incinerator to be small so there’s room to make the change to recycling,” Poll said. “If it has a smaller capacity, there will be real incentives to generate less waste for incineration.”

Copenhagen’s deputy mayor for technical and environmental affairs, Ayfer Baykal (Socialistisk Folkeparti), said a compromise needs to be reached on the size of any new incinerators built in Amager. The city refused to back a loan guarantee to build two new furnaces, each capable of handling 35 tonnes of waste per hour.

“We don’t need the incinerators to be so large, because the amount of trash generated in Copenhagen is expected to fall by 20 percent in the coming years,” Baykal told Politiken newspaper.

Baykal declined to say what compromises the city hopes to make, but Mogens Lømborg of Amagerforbrænding told Politiken that the larger ovens would be more cost-effective in the long-run.

Currently, CONCITO is waiting to hear back from the board of Amagerforbrænding with what it hopes will be plans to include more recycling facilities.

Looking towards the future, Poll said there was reason to expect Copenhagen would continue to recycle more and incinerate less. Calling the migration from landfilling to incineration a “good step”, he said continued progress would take effort. “Everything is possible; you just have to want it.”

Not enough rubbish to go around

Jennifer Buley

July 22, 2011 – 12:00

Councils scramble for foreign rubbish to fuel nation’s waste-to-energy incinerators

They say that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. In Denmark, one man’s waste is another man’s warmth – and there isn’t enough of it to go around.

Denmark leads most EU countries in municipal waste incineration for energy and heating. The country’s state-of-the-art incineration plants convert burnable household waste into the energy that heats up people’s homes, while filtering out a high percentage of the poisons and preventing 95 percent of all waste from ending up in a landfill.

Because of the popularity of this model, however, a number of communities are having trouble getting their hands on enough rubbish to feed the furnaces – and that is pressing more and more councils to import burnable foreign waste.

Three months ago, Nykøbing Falster in southern Zealand became the first Danish council to begin importing German garbage for incineration as it was not getting sufficient burnable rubbish from Zealand itself to run its incinerators efficiently.

The problem is even bigger in more rural areas, including much of Jutland, where concentrations of people are not large enough to produce enough waste to run the incineration plants. Several Jutland plants therefore plan to begin importing rubbish from Great Britain to make up for chronic garbage shortages.

Yet despite the shortage of homegrown burnable waste, thirteen Jutland councils are now weighing the possibility of building a new mega-sized incineration plant in Kjellerup, between Viborg and Silkeborg.

To run the new waste-to-energy plant thousands of truckloads of foreign rubbish may have to be imported from Germany and Great Britain. That has led critics to question the intelligence of the project.

“What’s about to happen is socio-economically stupid,” Palle Mang, managing director for Nomi, a waste management company in Holstebro, told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. “For a start, there’s not enough rubbish to ensure a sufficient supply for the incineration plants that already exist. If the plant in Kjellerup is built, we will come up short another 190,000 tonnes [of rubbish].”

Nomi is currently sourcing 4,000 tonnes of rubbish each month from outside the council just to keep its smaller incineration facility running.

But Flemming Christensen, managing director of the council-owned waste management company behind the Kjellerup project, says that is just fine.

“I don’t see any problem with importing rubbish. It’s a really good idea to use rubbish for fuel. In that way we can reduce carbon dioxide emissions and help our neighbouring countries at the same time,” he said.

But the quality of the rubbish that is imported – as well as the distance and means by which it travels to get to the incinerator – will also have a big impact on whether carbon dioxide emissions are reduced or raised.

A recent study from the Technical University of Denmark revealed that high plastic levels in Danish household waste are the culprit for much higher carbon dioxide emissions from incineration practices than previously estimated.

The 13 councils are scheduled to meet about the proposed mega-incinerator project on September 1

http://cphpost.dk/news/national/not-enough-rubbish-go-around

Denmark’s carbon bomb

Jennifer Buley

April 8, 2011 – 09:00

Due to high levels of plastic incineration, carbon dioxide emissions are double the old estimate

A new study from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) indicates that Denmark’s carbon dioxide emissions are double the previous calculation and have probably been so for years.

Accordingly, Denmark is exceeding its carbon dioxide goals under the Kyoto Protocol.

Widespread municipal rubbish incineration – the same waste-to-energy system that has been touted internationally as a model for clean energy resourcefulness – is the main culprit.

The incineration itself is not necessarily the problem. It is just that there is too much plastic in our trash, say experts.

The new findings come from a current study on the composition of the nation’s household rubbish, by DTU associate professor Thomas Astrup. He found that the actual amount of ‘fossil content’ – plastics, in other words – in rubbish that is being incinerated is twice what authorities were estimating.

Although the study’s final results will not be ready until summer, the preliminary data was strong enough to convince the National Environmental Research Institute (DMU) to begin revising its annual report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which monitors whether countries are meeting their Kyoto Protocol commitments.

Based on the new carbon dioxide calculations from the DTU, Denmark is not.

“Our preliminary research shows that our emissions are in the range of 32.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide per gigajoule – which is twice as much as the 17.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide per gigajoule we used to think we were putting out from incinerators,” Astrup told science website videnskab.dk.

Some 700,000 tons more carbon dioxide escape into the atmosphere every year than previously thought, according to his computer models.

Denmark burns approximately half of all its household rubbish at incinerator plants that convert rubbish into energy for residential electricity and heat. Widespread municipal rubbish incineration means that just five percent of Danish rubbish gets buried in landfills. But it also means that we emit extra carbon dioxide.

“Carbon dioxide emissions were probably higher in previous years also. We just didn’t know,” Astrup told The Copenhagen Post.

According to a DMU report from 2010 – before the new data – the average Dane is responsible for releasing two and a half times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the average world citizen. That number could be much higher when new calculations are taken into account.

Double the plastic in household rubbish means double the carbon dioxide emissions, when that rubbish gets incinerated.

“In Denmark we often sort less and incinerate more than other countries,” Astrup said. “But it makes sense, because we have a very developed district heating system that is very efficient at turning it into energy. This makes Denmark somewhat different from most other countries.”

There is a misconception that state-of-the-art incineration plants reduce carbon dioxide emissions. But that is not the case. They filter out dioxins and other poisons that might otherwise escape into the air, and if they are highly efficient, as in Denmark, they provide more energy from less rubbish.

The key to reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the rubbish that is burned is making sure that there is less fossil content in it.

“The carbon dioxide coming from waste incinerators depends upon the waste composition and not the technology or efficiency of the plant,” said Astrup.

Separating and recycling more plastics from household rubbish would seem to be the answer, but Astrup warns that is not necessarily the ‘greenest’ solution:
“Burning the plastic in highly efficient Danish incinerators generates energy that we then do not need to produce at power plants using coal and gas. This saves carbon dioxide emissions elsewhere.”

“If the plastic can be sorted out in clean fractions and recycled properly to make new plastic, then it’s a good idea. But if it’s not clean, it can only be recycled into secondary materials, which saves less new plastic and less carbon dioxide emissions. Then it is better to incinerate the plastic in Denmark at high efficiency,” he added.

http://cphpost.dk/news/scitech/denmarks-carbon-bomb

Consultation on amending the Waste Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2011

Download PDF : final_consultation_paper_on_amending_the_waste_regulations__northern_ireland__2011

Comments on the Project Profile for the HKAA’s 3rd runway project

Download PDF : EIA FoE’s comment to HKAA project profile final

Incinerators: better than landfills, but a recycling loser

THE COPENHAGEN POST

Erica Cooperberg        http://cphpost.dk/news/local/incinerators-better-landfills-recycling-loser

July 8, 2012 – 08:00

Burning rubbish provides energy for households, but also comes with a price: it makes people complacent about their trash disposal

Description: http://cphpost.dk/sites/default/files/styles/400x300/public/amagerforbraending_incinerator.jpg

Plans to build a new futuristic incinerator – complete with ski slope – were just too grand for the city

For the five and a half million individuals residing in Denmark, waste is a perpetual problem, but it is not one that is being ignored. However, depending on who you ask, the nation’s chosen disposal method – incineration – is either an ‘environmentally-friendly’ end station, or just a step in the right direction.

While 42 percent of Danish waste is recycled, according to official statistics, the majority, 54 percent, is burned in a process that converts waste into new forms of useful energy. In Denmark’s case, that means that instead of being sent to landfills, rubbish is burned to produce heat and electricity at what are known as waste-to-energy plants.

Amagerforbrænding, Denmark’s second-largest waste company, handles approximately ten percent of the country’s waste. That trash either winds up at one of 12 recycling stations or at its waste-to-energy plant in Amager.

Jonas Nedenskov, an engineer with Amagerforbrænding, explained that the plant incinerates over 400,000 tonnes of waste per year, which is converted into “climate-friendly energy” that supplies 120,000 households with heat in the form of forced hot water and 50,000 households with electricity.

But Amagerforbrænding isn’t just burning waste; recycling is a large part of the company’s environmental efforts, and some85 percent of the waste received at the recycling stations can be reused.

Amagerforbrænding hopes it can encourage people to recycle more. “Our task is to ensure that the collection and sorting of the many different plastics is as easy as possible,” Nedenskov said. Its latest initiative, to promote plastic recycling, is being carried out in co-operation with the city of Copenhagen.

Although incineration is a more environmentally-friendly process than landfilling, critics say it isn’t as green as its supporters make it out to be.

The process includes the emission of unhealthy toxins into the air, which is a concern to employees, the community directly surrounding the plant and the greater community.

Amagerforbrænding, according to Nedenskov, seeks to minimise the amount of toxins it releases by filtering its emissions to satisfy air quality requirements put out by environment agency Miljøstyrelsen.

But while emissions can be scrubbed, incineration’s other by-product is more difficult to deal with. After trash is burned, the leftover slag, made up mostly of metal, is unusable for anything other than road-building, contended Christian Poll of nature conservation society DN.

Essentially, the incinerators just “transform waste into concentrated material”, Poll said. “Those supporting incineration often forget to tell that story.”

While Poll agreed that incineration is “much better than landfilling, like we used 20 years ago”, Denmark should instead encourage people first and foremost to reduce the amount of waste they producereuse what they can, and then to recycle as much of the rest as possible.

A dispute between Amagerforbrænding and CONCITO, an environmental policy think-tank, surrounds this issue –Amagerforbrænding wishes to build a new incineration facility, while CONCITO argues that it is not entirely necessary.

While it does not support the current building proposals for the facility, CONCITO does back the facility’s overall expansion.

“We want the incinerator to be small so there’s room to make the change to recycling,” Poll said. “If it has a smaller capacity, there will be real incentives to generate less waste for incineration.”

Copenhagen’s deputy mayor for technical and environmental affairs, Ayfer Baykal (Socialistisk Folkeparti), said a compromise needs to be reached on the size of any new incinerators built in Amager. The city refused to back a loan guarantee to build two new furnaces, each capable of handling 35 tonnes of waste per hour.

“We don’t need the incinerators to be so large, because the amount of trash generated in Copenhagen is expected to fall by 20 percent in the coming years,” Baykal told Politiken newspaper.

Baykal declined to say what compromises the city hopes to make, but Mogens Lømborg of Amagerforbrænding toldPolitiken that the larger ovens would be more cost-effective in the long-run.

Currently, CONCITO is waiting to hear back from the board of Amagerforbrænding with what it hopes will be plans to include more recycling facilities.

Looking towards the future, Poll said there was reason to expect Copenhagen would continue to recycle more and incinerate less. Calling the migration from landfilling to incineration a “good step”, he said continued progress would take effort. “Everything is possible; you just have to want it.”

Not enough rubbish to go around

Jennifer Buley

July 22, 2011 – 12:00

Councils scramble for foreign rubbish to fuel nation’s waste-to-energy incinerators

They say that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. In Denmark, one man’s waste is another man’s warmth – and there isn’t enough of it to go around.

Denmark leads most EU countries in municipal waste incineration for energy and heating. The country’s state-of-the-art incineration plants convert burnable household waste into the energy that heats up people’s homes, while filtering out a high percentage of the poisons and preventing 95 percent of all waste from ending up in a landfill.

Because of the popularity of this model, however, a number of communities are having trouble getting their hands on enough rubbish to feed the furnaces – and that is pressing more and more councils to import burnable foreign waste.

Three months ago, Nykøbing Falster in southern Zealand became the first Danish council to begin importing German garbage for incineration as it was not getting sufficient burnable rubbish from Zealand itself to run its incinerators efficiently.

The problem is even bigger in more rural areas, including much of Jutland, where concentrations of people are not large enough to produce enough waste to run the incineration plants. Several Jutland plants therefore plan to begin importing rubbish from Great Britain to make up for chronic garbage shortages.

Yet despite the shortage of homegrown burnable waste, thirteen Jutland councils are now weighing the possibility of building a new mega-sized incineration plant in Kjellerup, between Viborg and Silkeborg.

To run the new waste-to-energy plant thousands of truckloads of foreign rubbish may have to be imported from Germany and Great Britain. That has led critics to question the intelligence of the project.

“What’s about to happen is socio-economically stupid,” Palle Mang, managing director for Nomi, a waste management company in Holstebro, told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. “For a start, there’s not enough rubbish to ensure a sufficient supply for the incineration plants that already exist. If the plant in Kjellerup is built, we will come up short another 190,000 tonnes [of rubbish].”

Nomi is currently sourcing 4,000 tonnes of rubbish each month from outside the council just to keep its smaller incineration facility running.

But Flemming Christensen, managing director of the council-owned waste management company behind the Kjellerupproject, says that is just fine.

“I don’t see any problem with importing rubbish. It’s a really good idea to use rubbish for fuel. In that way we can reduce carbon dioxide emissions and help our neighbouring countries at the same time,” he said.

But the quality of the rubbish that is imported – as well as the distance and means by which it travels to get to the incinerator – will also have a big impact on whether carbon dioxide emissions are reduced or raised.

A recent study from the Technical University of Denmark revealed that high plastic levels in Danish household waste are the culprit for much higher carbon dioxide emissions from incineration practices than previously estimated.

The 13 councils are scheduled to meet about the proposed mega-incinerator project on September 1

http://cphpost.dk/news/national/not-enough-rubbish-go-around

at least they bother to check

Oregon incinerator exceeds pollution limits

Waste & Recycling News – 1 day ago

The Coos County (Ore.) Solid Waste Department was fined $4800 for exceeding air pollution limits at its solid waste incinerators north of Bandon, Ore

HKAAEIAOfurther2

Download PDF : HKAAEIAOfurther2

Mak resigns after ICAC arrest

Clear the Air says : maybe like the Kwok brothers and Rafael Hui they might get charged in court within the next ten years, given ICAC’s record to date to arrest first and investigate later Really shows the quality of local talent available

The Development Secretary,Mak Chai-kwong, and three others have been arrested for allegedly violating the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance in relation to claims for government housing allowances. At the same time, Mr Mak has resigned as a minister – and his duties will be taken over by the Financial Secretary, John Tsang, with immediate effect. Both the Democratic Party and the Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood lodged …
Description: http://rthk.hk/rthk/news/englishnews/index_photo/1342075260.jpgMak Chai-kwong (far left) with the Financial Secretary, John Tsang, and other government officials after being chosen as Development Secretary last month. ISD photo.
Mak resigns after ICAC arrest
12-07-2012

The Development Secretary, Mak Chai-kwong, and three others have been arrested for allegedly violating the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance in relation to claims for government housing allowances. At the same time, Mr Mak has resigned as a minister – and his duties will be taken over by the Financial Secretary, John Tsang, with immediate effect.

Both the Democratic Party and the Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood lodged complaints with the anti-graft body about the allegations against Mr Mak. He’d earlier said that he and a current assistant director of highways Tsang King-man had cross-leased flats to each other in the 1980s, while claiming government rent allowances.

Mr Mak maintained that he had not breached any regulations. However, both he and Mr Tsang were summoned to the anti-graft body’s headquarters to help with their inquiries.

The ICAC said later that both men, plus two others had been arrested in connection with the case. It said it had no further comments at this stage.

The government said in a statement that the justice secretary had delegated authority to handle the case to the director of public prosecutions, and no further comment would be made while the ICAC’s inquiries are continuing.

The chairman of the Democratic Party, Albert Ho, said the developments would have a serious impact on Chief Executive C Y Leung’s team. He said integrity was the issue, even though the accusations against Mr Mak go back three decades and would have been hard for any integrity check to uncover.

Another legislator, the Civic Party’s Audrey Eu, said Mr Leung’s administration was off to a shaky start – and was beset by scandals involving personal integrity.

Legal bid to unseat CE begins
12-07-2012
Suresh Chandar reports

The High Court has begun hearing an application by two pro-democracy legislators for a judicial review to unseat the Chief Executive, C Y Leung. They say that Mr Leung is not suitable to hold office because he lied about illegal structures at his home on the Peak during his election campaign.

The application is being made by the chairman of the Democratic Party Albert Ho – who stood in the CE election – and Leung Kwok-hung from the League of Social Democrats.

Panyu presses on with incinerator plans

After protests foiled previous plan, proposal calls for plant in a different part of the Guangzhou district
Mimi Lau in Guangzhou
Updated on Jul 12, 2012
Nearly three years after plans to build an incinerator in Guangzhou’s Panyu district triggered massive protests,authorities have invited tenders to build the plant in a different part of the district.

According to an urban solid-waste-management plan for 2010 to 2020, the district government has proposed that the waste incinerator be operating by 2014 in Dagangtown, at the southern end of Panyu, The Southern Metropolis News reported yesterday. The plant was originally planned for the northern end of the district.

Two other towns – Dongchong and Dashi – were listed as backup options. The district government said the location would be selected within two weeks and public feedback would be sought only after the site was confirmed.

Guangzhou’s rubbish problem is worsening as waste continues to pile up. The city’s main landfill in Xingfengcounty is overflowing and faces imminent closure.

In 2009, Panyu officials announced a plan to build the incinerator in Dashi, which borders Haizhu district, but in November of that year the proposal faced intense opposition from nearby residents. More than 10,000 signatures were collected, and hundreds of angry property owners, concerned about their health and the negative effects on real estate prices, took the streets.

Among the protesters were staff from The Southern Metropolis News. They, like other residents, had concerns. The paper then also published a front-page piece about the impact of an incinerator in Likeng village in northern Guangzhou’s Baiyun district. That incinerator was three years old at the time.

The proposed incinerator in Panyu is designed to process 2,500 tonnes of solid waste a day, and the capacity is expected to be raised to 2,900 tonnes by 2020 and 4,000 tonnes by 2030. The incinerator would probably serve residents in the Panyu and Nansha districts.

Panyu resident Li Liyuan, 32, who has been living in the northern part of the district for eight years and who took part in the 2009 protest, said she felt relieved to learn that the facility would be built much farther away.

“I am worried for the residents living in Dagang, as the incinerator will affect their lives, but they might not be as organised and resourceful as northern Panyu’s middle-class residents to oppose such a plan,” Li said

According to figures from 2010, Beijing and Shanghai each produced about 20,000 tonnes of rubbish a day. Central Guangzhou was generating at least 8,000 tonnes a day, with 7,000 tonnes going to the Xingfeng landfill and 1,000 tonnes to the incinerator in Likeng.

mimi.lau@scmp.com

Clearing the air on runway probe

HKAA panic letter They still cannot prove they will be allowed additional landing rights by the PLA Airforce – meanwhile Shenzhen will be burning an additional 11,000 tonnes MSW per day by 2015, projected to rise to 18,000 tonnes per day

HK Standard

Airport Authority Hong Kong recently submitted further information for the project profile of Hong Kong International Airport’s proposed expansion to a three-runway system.

Kevin Poole

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Airport Authority Hong Kong recently submitted further information for the project profile of Hong Kong International Airport’s proposed expansion to a three-runway system.

That was in response to a request made by the director of environmental protection in June. The public can comment on the project and the new information to the director by tomorrow.

The airport authority is committed to carrying out the environmental impact assessment process in a transparent, engaging manner.

Some of the feedback received raises questions about: Our air traffic forecasts Safe operation of the three-runway system and The environmental information contained in the project profile.

I would like to clarify some misconceptions on these three critical areas.

On traffic forecasts, it has been noted that the growth in passenger demand included in the authority’s master plan 2030 exceeds that of the design capacity in the 1992 new airport master plan by about 10 percent.

This has led some to believe that the airport may not truly be reaching its saturation point, and that the excess capacity for flight movements will be used predominantly for private jets.

The discrepancy between the forecasts is mainly because many of the working assumptions adopted in the early 1990s were based on the operating environment of Kai Tak airport, which was highly constrained and fully stretched.

At the time it was natural for airlines to maximize each valuable slot by deploying the biggest aircraft possible.

The 1992 plan therefore assumed that wide-bodied aircraft would comprise more than 80 percent of aircraft movements, resulting in a high average passenger load forecast of more than 300 people per aircraft.

The new airport at Chek Lap Kok provided more runway capacity, allowing airlines to increase their flight frequencies and service to secondary destinations.

This has enabled the authority to develop into an international and regional aviation hub, but it also led to the deployment of more narrow-bodied aircraft – mostly less than 200 seats.

Since 2000, the average passenger load per aircraft has decreased to about 190. In other words, it will take 437,000 aircraft movements instead of the 278,000 originally estimated in the 1992 plan to serve 87 million passenger trips.

In addition, from 1997 to 2010 the percentage of wide-bodied freighters decreased from 84 to 67 percent in favor of medium-sized aircraft.

Therefore, moving 8.9 million tonnes of cargo will take 108,000 aircraft movements instead of the 66,000 forecast.

Finally, it is important to note that civil aviation has always been and remains the authority’s top priority. Business flights use only time slots that are not already occupied by scheduled flights, and they account for about 2 percent of the airport’s total aircraft movements.

When considering future development and service, our primary goal will continue to put the needs of civil flights first.

On the safe operation of the three- runway system, the authority in conjunction with National Air Traffic Services has developed and designed the position and alignment of the third runway and its associated flight paths – including departure and missed approach flight path – in accordance with standards laid down by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, ensuring the obstacle clearance along the flight paths between an aircraft and ground obstacles meet the stipulated safety requirements.

The airspace management experts in the Civil Aviation Department also agree on the designs.

On the environmental impact assessment project profile, it must be emphasized that this is the first step in the process, designed to set out the project scope and identify potential environmental issues.

It is not intended to fully detail environmental impacts and mitigation measures, aspects which are reserved for the comprehensive study following the issuing of the study brief by the Department of Environmental Protection.

The airport authority has complied with all statutory guidelines for preparing the project profile and supplied all required information, and it has also committed to undertaking the air quality studies by benchmarking against the new air quality objectives which have yet to come into effect.

The Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance carries a provision allowing the department to request information further to the project profile, which it has done.

The further information requested covering marine ecology, noise, health and hazards is intended to help the department draft the study brief.

The additional information includes updates on Chinese white dolphins; clarification that the airport authority has always planned to address all air pollutants under current and new air quality objectives (including NO2, ozone, PM10, PM2.5 and more) during the assessment; clarification that the preliminary aircraft noise contours prepared during master planning will be subject to further evaluation during the assessment; and clarification that the assessment will address the potential impact on all identified ecologically sensitive receivers and areas of potential ecological concern, including the Chek Lap Kok Marine Exclusion Zone, as well as the cumulative impacts associated with other major planned projects such as the Shek Kwu Chau incinerator.

It is important to remember that the submission of the project profile represents just the first step in a two-year process.

The actual assessment will address potential environmental impacts in all areas.

We value the feedback we receive as we explore all possible ways to avoid, minimize, mitigate and compensate for potential environmental impacts, and we look forward to continuing our dialogue with concerned stakeholders as the process unfolds.

Kevin Poole is deputy director, projects, at the Airport Authority Hong Kong

Introduction

Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) has been ranked as the busiest airport for international air cargo since 1996. In 2011, HKIA handled 3.9 million tonnes of freight  http://www.hongkongairport.com/eng/business/about-the-airport/air-cargo/air-cargo-intro.html

Air cargo volumes through Hong Kong down on last year
May 06, 2011

Hong Kong Airport’s leading ground handler saw tonnage fall in April, compared with a year earlier, as exports from China continued to falter.

Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals (Hactl) handled 225,791 tonnes in the month, down 9.3% year on year.

Cumulative tonnage for the first four months of the year was down 1.1% to 876,136 tonnes. Decreasing export volumes was the prime cause, 11.6% down, year on year, to 122,123 tonnes.

Total export volumes for the first four months of 2011 totalled 457,236 tonnes, a drop of 4.1% year on year.

Import volumes for April also fell: down 6.4% to 57,748 tonnes

http://www.thegfp.com/news/title/Air-cargo-volumes-through-Hong-Kong-down-on-last-year

Hong Kong’s Hactl Q1 air cargo traffic down 2.5 pct y/r, -0.7 pct in March

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Fri Apr 13, 2012 6:57am EDT

HONG KONG, April 13 (Reuters) – Hong Kong Air Cargo

Terminals Ltd (Hactl) said on Friday its cargo traffic fell 2.5

percent in the first quarter from the same period a year ago, as

the global economy slowed.

It handled a total of 633,935 tonnes of cargo in the January

to March period, with exports and imports decreasing 1.7 percent

and 13.3 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.

Hactl is a major air cargo player in Hong Kong, which is a

re-export centre for trade between Asia and the rest of the

world. It handles about 70 percent of the cargo traffic of Hong

Kong’s international airport.

A breakdown of air cargo handled by Hactl in March and the

first quarter of 2012:

March 2012             Jan-Mar 2012

Tonnage     Yr/Yr       Tonnage      Yr/Yr

(tonnes)  growth (pct)   (tonnes)  growth (pct)

Export           137,598      +0.4       329,418       -1.7

Import            57,630     -10.0       151,986      -13.3

Transshipment     58,543      +7.7       152,531       +9.1

————————————————————–

Total            253,771      -0.7       633,935       -2.5

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/13/hongkong-aircargo-idUSL3E7LR2L520120413

No accounting for waste

Charities distribute surplus food to the needy, but too much is still being thrown away
Andrew Dembina (foodandwine@scmp.com)
Jul 12, 2012

Banker and charity worker Celene Loo leads me to Novotel Hong Kong Century’s coffee shop kitchen. There, we bag up a full tray of chef Lui Tak-cheong’s leftover croissants, Danish pastries and pain au chocolat. “A bit less than usual today,” Lui says with a shrug. “The restaurant was quite busy this morning.”

Then we are off to a nearby home for the elderly, where we hand out the small sealed bags. Each bears a sticker with a bilingual quote from the New Testament: “And Jesus said to them. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never be hungry.”

Nurses and elderly residents greet Loo with a smile. The recipients have grown very fond of the pastries she brings through Giving Bread, the charity she founded in 2010.

Giving Bread acts as a conduit, tapping surplus food from a network of more than 50 individuals and food industry donors, for distribution to people in need. Loo’s aim is to bridge the gap between food wastage on one hand and hunger on the other.

Loo says she has built relationships and goodwill with fine dining restaurants in Hong Kong over several years. But it took a lot of initial persuasion for them to come on board.

It was the small “ma and pa bakeries” that first shared her vision, happily passing on surplus bread and cakes. “The bigger or richer the restaurant or hotel, the more it feels it has something to lose,” she says.

Once a few got involved in Giving Bread’s distribution rota, others were attracted by the stories that the volunteers told. Recipients now include cage-home dwellers and street-sleepers, as well as those who cannot afford three meals a day or are struggling with the rent.

Such selfless work – Loo is exceptionally modest – is in stark contrast to media reports on how most surplus food is treated.

Friends of the Earth, Hong Kong announced that some bakery and supermarket chains have been deliberately spoiling or contaminating food products before dumping them.

It is unclear whether this is done to prevent scavengers “enjoying” the food, or to prevent food poisoning being associated with retailers.

The environmental group’s statistics, gauged from analysis of food waste on five occasions from February to May of this year, put the amount of edible food dumped daily at 29 tonnes at present, one-third of which is still edible.

That is enough to feed about 48,000 three-person families.

The issue of food waste, of course, is not confined to retail vendors of perishable produce. Restaurants and cafes also have waste food to dispose of. Environmental Protection Department figures tallied the total daily food waste in Hong Kong as 840 tonnes in 2010.

There are no figures quantifying restaurant food waste. But Friends of the Earth did a study on Chinese banquet food waste two years ago, finding that 104 banquet tables equalled about 400kg of edible waste. It estimated total banquets per year in Hong Kong to be between two million and 2.5 million tables, or the equivalent of about 9,500 tonnes of trashed consumable cooked food.

The SCMP reported on June 28 that some of the four leading supermarket chains (ParknShop, Wellcome, CR Vanguard – best known for its CRC stores – and Jusco) plan to donate food to charity after a government request to reduce the amount of consumable dumped food.

The report followed environment minister Edward Yau Tang-wah’s announcement at a Legislative Council meeting that Food and Environmental Hygiene Department staff met bosses at the four chains to suggest that they consider donating food to charities. Wellcome, ParknShop and Jusco said they were looking into all areas, and CR Vanguard did not comment.

The supermarkets contend that it is in their business interest to minimise the amount of food waste available to donate. But they add if they were to donate food, making sure that it was safe to eat would be a top priority. They also argue that it is not in their interests to deliberately create waste.

Supermarkets, hotels and restaurants also point to legal obstacles to redistributing surplus food.

In newspaper advertisements on June 27, ParknShop said it would consider waste reduction, but was cautious about safety. “Giving away food, which has expired, has been damaged or decayed and taken down from the racks to be disposed of, would involve food safety risks,” the statement said.

“There is no reason for any retail company to create food waste intentionally.”

Clara Choi, marketing manager, HK supermarket business department of CR Vanguard, says the food “disposed of from our supermarkets is already unfit for consumption. We would not add any bleach or harmful substance to unwanted products.”

Supermarkets measure their perishable food wastage as a shrinkage rate. ParknShop says its shrinkage rate of fresh food, at 0.4 per cent, is extremely low compared to overseas industry rates of 5 per cent to 6 per cent. It also says it has contacted selected food banks and is investigating details of donating edible food waste. The company insists it will also continue to follow government guidelines to explore other practical and safe way of food waste management.

But Celia Fung Sze-lai, environmental affairs officer at Friends of the Earth (HK) challenges ParknShop’sclaims that all the food it dumps is expired and rotten. “The day after the ads, we found more [edible food], she says.

“We would like it to do more than spend money on adverts. It should use resources to stop the waste and make donations to charities.”

A Wellcome spokesman says the chain appreciates the importance of poverty alleviation and waste reduction and strives to be a responsible corporate citizen. Although the company has yet to start making charitable food donations, preparation is under way, he says. A pilot programme will be launched onceWellcome confirms a partnering organisation and works out the logistics of food donation.

Wellcome will also take part in the food waste recycling partnership scheme, a pilot food recycling programme launched by the EPD to turn food waste into materials such as compost and biogas.

“We believe that waste reduction must go hand in hand with food recycling. We have been making our best efforts to reduce food waste by dedicating significant resources to both accurate demand forecasting and efficient inventory management, which are two effective ways to reduce food waste.”

Local restaurant and bakery chain, Maxim’s Group, initiated its surplus bread donation programme in 2009 with an aim to promote waste reduction.

With 19 NGOs on board, it currently distributes surplus baked products from some 80 participating Maxim’s Cakes shops to the needy every day.

Its partners include Foodlink, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions’ food recycling programme, local charity Yan Oi Tong, Tung Wah Group of Hospitals and Food Angel, among others. Arome Bakery, also owned by the group, recently joined this programme. Hotels have been getting involved with surplus food distribution.

Gregoire Michaud, pastry chef at the Four Seasons Hong Kong, was approached by Loo in 2010 and tried to get the hotel involved. “Bakers work very hard, often overnight to ensure people get the best bread possible in the morning,” he says. “Our best reward is to have bread eaten and enjoyed by all. Throwing bread away is not an option – ever.

“We give bread once a week, and I joined the distribution once, which was very moving and touching. Celeneis the soul of Giving Bread and, thanks to her, Hong Kong starves a little less every day. I believe that, in a city like Hong Kong, nobody should suffer from hunger.”

Michaud notes that several organisations collect and distribute food. But more could be done: “I have never been a fan of buffets from a quality control point of view. But they also generate an incredible amount of food waste. Minimising buffets would help reduce waste, but people in Hong Kong think they are value for money.”

Four Seasons Hong Kong generates 1.1 tonnes of food waste daily that is unsuitable for redistribution. Its general policy regarding the passing on of edible surplus food and drinks products reflects local legalities. “Creams and dairy products, for example, cannot be redistributed,” explains director of public relations, Claire Blackshaw.

Food waste unsuitable for redistribution is collected by Kowloon Biotechnology. This is added to the tens of tonnes it collects daily, then processes into fish feed in the New Territories.

Friends of the Earth and food distribution organisations are pushing for donors to be exempt from liability, should beneficiaries fall ill from tainted foodstuffs.

Donation programmes try to spell out the risks involved. Fung says the US has a Good Samaritan law (the Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, of 1996) which exempts liability for all except the grossest of negligence when donated food is believed to be given in good faith.

Since March of this year, The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong has donated 60 to 80 pastries each weekday toFoodlink. “We had plenty of charities approach us to ask if we could donate,” says executive chef Peter Find.

“In the end, we had to select one we found trustworthy. We followed its distribution network and are happy. It’s an organisation run completely by volunteers, which I have great respect for.”

Description: Giving Bread founder Celene Loo (top left) selects pastries to distribute to old people's homes (top right); Peter Find, executive chef at The Ritz-Carlton, gives to Foodlink (above left); Friends of the Earth's Celia Fung with some of the food scavenged from a rubbish dump (above right).

Giving Bread founder Celene Loo (top left) selects pastries to distribute to old people’s homes (top right); Peter Find, executive chef at The Ritz-Carlton, gives to Foodlink (above left); Friends of the Earth’s Celia Fung with some of the food scavenged from a rubbish dump (above right).
Photos: Edmond So, Nora Tam