Waste Reduction - Recycling & User Fees

Recyclers to spend HK$61m at new park



Three recyclers will invest up to HK$61 million to recover and recycle plastic, rubber tyres and wooden waste after they were awarded land at the newly established Eco-Park

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The trio are Jets Technics Limited, which will turn tyres into mattresses, Telford Envirotech, which shreds plastics into pellets for reuse, and Hung Wai Wooden Board, which reprocesses wooden waste into chipboard. They were awarded 10-year land leases at monthly rents of HK$11 to HK$21 per square metre.

The sites total 19,500 square metres, out of eight hectares of land put forward for public tender earlier this year. The Eco Park in Tuen Mun, with a total size of 20 hectares and costing HK$319 million to build, will come into operation in phases. Environment officials hope it will help divert waste from shrinking landfills.

The three recyclers, picked from a dozen bidders, will be required to handle at least 6,000 tonnes of plastic, 2,000 tonnes of wood and 8,000 tonnes of tyres a year, starting from next year.

Next month, officials expect to invite recyclers in plastics, organic waste and electronic and electrical waste to bid for the remaining 12 hectares.

"By encouraging and promoting the reuse, recovery and recycling of our waste resources and returning them to the consumption loop, the Eco Park will help to develop a circular economy within Hong Kong," said Environmental Protection Department director Anissa Wong Sean-yee, who signed contracts with the three recyclers yesterday.

Latest EPD figures show 7,300 tonnes of tyres, 118,625 tonnes of wood waste and 623,785 tonnes of plastics are sent to landfills each year.

Under the terms of the contracts, the three operators will be required to collect waste locally at their own cost and will not be allowed to use imported waste unless they have met the minimum recycling targets and gain approval from the Environmental Protection Department.