RESIDENTS in Shekou, Nanshan District, welcomed a Hong Kong government decision to abandon plans to build a garbage incinerator in Tuen Mun, just four kilometers across the bay from Shekou.
Hong Kong environmental officials have selected a remote outlying island, Shek Kwu Chau, about six kilometers south of Lantau, for the controversial mega waste incinerator, the South China Morning Post reported Friday.
The incinerator was originally planned for Tsang Tsui in Tuen Mun, causing wide public concern over pollution in Shekou as well as Tuen Mun. Residents worried that it would aggravate air pollution and pose a health risk.
This is absolutely good news, said Ao Jiannan, an environmental protection household name in Nanshan District. Ao took to Hong Kong streets together with a number of other environmental activists in Nanshan District last year after learning of the plan to build the incinerator in Tuen Mun. Shenzhen environmental authorities had also contacted Hong Kong counterparts over the issue.
Pollutants and carcinogens were likely to affect Nantou Peninsula where Shekou is located, especially with southerly winds in summer, if the incinerator was built in Tsang Tsui.
Ao believed every residents in densely populated Shekou, and even the whole Nantou Peninsula, would be delighted at the news.
The selection process for the incinerator has been controversial since sites were shortlisted in 2008. Concern heightened when a plan to expand the Tseung Kwan O landfill was rejected by Hong Kong lawmakers last year.
The environmental impact report released Thursday did little to resolve the controversy, however. It refrained from saying if Shek Kwu Chau or Tsang Tsui was the more acceptable choice on environmental grounds.
It concludes that both sites comply with all environmental standards, leaving it largely for the government to decide on the site.
Hong Kong s environment minister Edward Yau Tang-wah said the island was favored because it would create a more balanced distribution of waste facilities throughout the SAR. And, because it was closer to existing refuse transfer facilities in the urban area, waste transport distances would be shorter.
Shek Kwu Chau is further away from major population centers, Yau said, so the accumulated environmental effect will be less. (SD News)
