Sustainable approach for solid waste management Lessons from other countries

Sustainable approach for solid waste management: Lessons from other countries

CAI QINGZHI

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Introduction: Do you still hold the view that the solid waste problem seems normal in Hong Kong? Although the megalopolis seems to be well-ordered and tidy, the answer is actually no! Depending on TIME magazine (Krista Mahr, Oct. 26, 2010), actually, Hong Kong generates more trash per capita than any other places in the world for the appalling figure of 921 kg of municipal solid waste per person in 2009 and the situation is getting worse gradually. Then, does Hong Kong have the greatest sustainable approach for solid waste management? The answer is still not, as Hong Kong is of such a small size and large population, its government has neither enough land to put the huge amount of trash nor thorough process to dispose them. In this article, we will discuss the status quo of municipal solid waste (MSW) management in Hong Kong, and then compare multiple disposal approaches of MSW such as landfills, incineration, and recycling in both Hong Kong and other countries. Analyse the adaptation of the technology to utilize in Hong Kong and give some pieces of suggestion.

Landfills: The most common method of waste disposal around the world

Current landfills utilized in Hong Kong:
Hong Kong has three in-service landfills of which contain one of the most advanced and large landfills in the world, the West New Territories Landfill. Since Hong Kong has 54 years history in landfills’ construction and management, and also has to cope with the tremendous number of wastes everyday, which was monitored as 13,844 tons per day in 2012 (Refuse Transfer Station Development Group in Hong Kong, 2012), the design and management of landfills in Hong Kong can be considered to be consummate around the world. The landfills in Hong Kong are consisted of Landfill Liner System, Leachate Management System, Landfill Gas Management System, Surface Water / Ground Water Management System and Environmental Monitoring System. These complicated and advanced systems have reduced the hazard of the solid waste and there are only two slightly permeable accidents in recent years, and such kind of permeable problems cannot be avoided by most countries around the world until now. What’s more, the post-restoration of the landfills in Hong Kong is comparatively satisfying, as ten of the 13 capped landfills have served as recreation facilities and two of them are transformed to green belt.

The landfill restoration lessons from American:
Although Hong Kong has advanced landfill construction and management technology around world, the restoration and reuse of landfills in Hong Kong are still not the most advanced and need to be improved further more. A good lesson, to turn the closed landfill into solar farm and transfer the so called “brownfields” in to sites to locate clean energy facilities which cover large spaces is a new development trend in U.S. in recent years. Actually, to build a solar farm does not be too difficult. Despite the conventional maintenance and repair work, the main task to do is to set up the solar panel support infrastructure truck in the panels and then, connect the project to the national power grid. The most important issue for a solar farm to build is how to find sufficient land. According to Solar Trade Association in American, approximately 25 acres of lands are required for every 5 megawatts (MW) of installation, and the power generated is enough to power 1,515 homes (Solar Trade Association. USA). And the to be repaired land of landfills is a great choice to build solar farm as the soil needs 30 years to renew and the occupied area of landfills is usually immense.

According to the WMW magazine, a 10.14 MW solar farm will be built on the closed Parklands landfill in New Jersey. (Ben Messenger, 26 September 2014) The solar farm will utilize 40 acres of landfill space and 2000 average-size rooms annually, and the statistic will be doubled in 2015. “It had a stigma connected to it, and now it's a positive thing. “This is the future.” said Mayor Paul Medany, when New Jersey and Gloucester County officials gathered at Kinsley landfill to celebrate the previous frustrating landfill to turn into environmental-friendly solar farm. (Andy Polhamus, 2014)

If the scheme can be practiced in Hong Kong, there will be the following advantages:

At first, as Hong Kong is confronted with potentially serious energy scarcity, the green pollution free power generation system should be constructed widely to reduce the current energy pressure. According to the Environment Bureau, HKSAR, electricity production accounts for around two-thirds of CO2 emissions in Hong Kong because until 2009, coal still shares a 54% counts in the fuel mix of electricity generation (Fuel Mix for Electricity Generation in 2009). And Hong Kong relies highly on importation to meet the huge electricity demanded. To utilize solar panels on the closed landfills cannot only reuse the brownfield in Hong Kong but also charge the city with clean energy. Counted by the facts given in the last paragraph, if all the already closed landfills in Hong Kong are taken to the solar farm, it will charge around ten percent of families’ Household Electricity in Hong Kong. The movement will not only lighten the burden of the recent generation problem but also boost the use of sustainable resource.

Secondly, most current closed landfills have been transferred into recreation areas, but sometimes the creation parks cannot play their best roles because the previous landfills are usually far from the residential areas to minimize the interference to local residence. So it is certainly not really convenient for citizens to use these parks or green belts. So maybe to build a big energy producer solar farm on the previous rural landfills is a better choice for the government.

Thirdly, is it actually safe to rebuild a recreation area over a capped landfill? The answer may be no. There are actually many potential hazards for the adjacent landfill such as the toxic gas leakage which will do harm to human health even cause accident. For example, the brand new Kwai Chung Park over the closed Gin Drinkers Bay in Hong Kong was compelled to close in 1992 due to methane leak. (姚寶, 18 April 2013) However, there is not any constraint for the choice of the site to build a solar farm because there is rarely human’s footprints in the farm covered fully with solar panels. So an energy product solar farm may be a more wise choice compared to a riskY recreation park for citizens.

Over all, to build solar farms is a better after-treatment for landfills in Hong Kong. Despite the possible risk to build a recreation area, to build solar farm is really a sustainable trend over the world.

Incineration: a waste-to-energy waste treatment process:

Incineration status in Hong Kong:
There were four incinerations in the historical Hong Kong, but all of them had been demolished in the 1990s owing to serious pollution of the environment. The HK government has ever planned to construct an incineration in Shek Kwu Chau, but the construction work has been delayed owing to various difficulties involved in such as pollution issues and the against of residents living nearby. As the last one of the three current landfills in Hong Kong will be filled up in 2018, an incineration with highly efficient and low contaminate is in dire need.

Japan’s Incineration: a effective and clean incineration plant
Depending on a research made by Hong Kong Baptist University in 2010, there were 48.1 million tons solid wastes generated in Japan per year and 75.7% of them were disposed by incineration. Among the approximately 2000 incinerations, some of them even were built near the residential area so that they can generate electricity and supply heating and hot water for the neighboring community. For incineration disposing 3000 tons of garbage per day, the energy generated by which can supply about 20,000 average families’ energy consumption. In Kobe, 6.2% of the electricity demand and 25.0% of the hot water demand could be satisfied by incineration (Tabata, T., 2013) According to the research, up to 2011, there were 21 incinerations in Tokyo and can dispose the wastes in the restriction independently.

Despite of the high efficiency and the capacity to produce energy, incineration in Japan is still comparatively environmentally friendly. As Japan improved the combustibility of the waste by implementing the 3T(time, temperature, and turbulence) control method (Hershkowitz, A., & Salerni, E., 1989), the emission of dioxins declined sharply to 0.000097NgTEQ/m3 in 2005 while the standard of emission was 0.05ngTEQ/m3. There are even some improvement technologies in flu gas treatment such as changing dust collection equipment to the bag filter. For instance, particulate emission of 2005 in Japan was smaller than 1 mg/m3 while the statistic monitored in previous Lai Chi Kok incinerator was almost 245mg/m3.

Currently, many Hong Kong people show strong oppositions to the future construction plan of incineration even it will be built on an island which is isolated from Hong Kong. However, when we analyse the waste treatment status in Hong Kong, we will find that 52% of Hong Kong’s MSW disposals are relying on landfills now, but the three actual landfills will all be saturated in 2018. What’s more, there is no space left to build any additional landfills. After that, other MSW dispose methods such as recycling and reduction cannot make up the absence of landfills obviously, unless the recycling situation in Hong Kong is improved rapidly within five years. So how to deal with the thousands tons waste every day after 2018 is already become a controversial and urgent issue in the society.

No doubt, incineration is the fastest method to solve the urgent MSW disposal status in Hong Kong, and there is still not an alternative choice for Hong Kong. But the incinerator should meet the following requests:

First, the incinerator to be built should neither pose adverse to residents’ health nor pollute the environment. Although slight pollution in the air is inevitable, the emission should at least meet the latest European Union emission standards thoroughly. Hong Kong can import the advanced technology and learn the experiences of incineration management from other countries which already possess mature and green incineration plants such as Japan or Korean even Tai Wan. Implement the most advanced technology to handle the toxic emissions. For instance, use selective catalytic reaction system to reduce the emission of nitrogen oxides (Elvis W. K. Au, 2014), or take advantage of Japan’s “3T” control method. As there are a lot of successful lessons from other countries, we can believe that by conscientious treatment, it is not a dream to have an environment-friendly incinerator in Hong Kong.

Second, the incinerator should be an effective waste-to –energy installation. The recent fuel fix in Hong Kong is really consumptive by using a mass of nature resources. A waste- to-energy installation can not only upgrade the recent fuel consuming structure, lighten the power pressure in Hong Kong, but can also comfort local residents who hold a fierce against to the incineration plan.

However, regardless of the fact that incinerator is of urgent use for Hong Kong, it can only be considered as a transition step in MSW treatment. After all, there are still remaining many demerits for manipulating an incinerator. Eventually, we should resort to some fundamental method such and recycling and reduction to control the MSW.

Recycling: one of the best methods to control MSW from the source

Hong Kong recycling status:
The social indicators in Hong Kong show that the percentage of Municipal Solid waste recycled was 38.91% on 2012. The statistic seems pretty mild, but the recycling status was actually far from satisfying. At present, over 99% of the local waste materials recycled are exported to overseas countries or China for processing, and Hong Kong’s recycling industry is still imitated to an “only collection and no recycling” era. The exportation relying on recycling makes the recycling industry fragile and can only create limited work opportunities. What’s more, according to the Green Power in Hong Kong (Karen Woo, Feb 2013), there is now more than 1700 estates or buildings having joined the "Source Separation of Domestic Waste Scheme", accounting for up to 80% of the population in Hong Kong. However, there is no compelling measure on recycling at the same time, so the recycling behavior depends purely on the volunteer. The recycling in the community is still at a low rate. Every year, millions of tons of solid waste such as woods and glass are disposed in the landfills directly without recycling.

Switzerland: the country tops in recycling waste
The recycling rate of MSW in Switzerland exceeds 50% since 2005 and the figure is even increasing. Recyclers in Switzerland recycled 70% of paper, 95% of glass, 71% of plastic bottles, 85-90% of aluminium cans and 75% of tin cans in 2003, which broke the recycling world record. (Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Presence Switzerland)

That was partly because many householders in Switzerland need to be paid a tax according to the volume of rubbish they put out. The citizens must use an official grey refuse bag to dispose of the rubbish and the price of the bag is expensive, range from $1.64 to $9.60 USD each. So to some extent, recycling became a mandatory behavior in Switzerland. And there is also a landfilling ban, demanding all non-recycled combustible waste be incinerated.

As we mentioned before, Hong Kong is now facing serious MSW treating problem and incinerator is only a short-term strategy. The most sustainable and long-term MSW dispose method is recycling, which can reduce and eliminate MSW at the source. Hong Kong needs to implement more effective measures to improve the weak current recycling status:

First, not only rely on the volunteering of the citizens to develop the recycling progress. It is necessary to utilize some mandatory policy to increase the recycling rate among the society. One of the good examples is Switzerland’s rubbish dispose and landfilling ban. The Hong Kong government should resort to some policy which are more adaptable to Hong Kong, such as the plastic bag levy to encourage citizens to do the recycling in their daily life. Besides charge, the rubbish, some encouragement method can also be used. Such as settle some specialized waste collection bins in each community and divide the bins into different sort such as cans, papers or plastics. Citizens will get a recycling stamp every time they recycle the trash by sorting them into different classes. What’s more, widely education about the necessity of recycling is also needed to evoke the environmental consciousness of citizens.

Besides the daily trash made by citizens such as kitchen garbage, another sizable share of MSW in Hong Kong is industrial waste. So a comprehensive “producer responsibility” principle is still needed to revise by the HK government. That means if companies make less effort in recycling, they have to be paid more waste cost while more recycling leads to less payment. By this way, the cost of MSW dispose can be shared by both entities and consumers.

Thirdly, more than one recycling waste processing centers are needed to complete the recycling chain in Hong Kong. The only collection without processing recycling status is not only fragile but also inefficient. At first, the establishment of a completely recycling system can make more work opportunities for the poorest class. Then, by reproducing products from recycled material, more profit will be taken by the recycling process. Therefore, the price of reusable waste will increase thus provoke the enthusiasm of recycling.

Those measures will increase the efficiency and enthusiasm of waste recycling notablely, and Hong Kong should not still rely on the volunteering of the citizens to improve the recycling progress. Recycling is the MSW disposed method which Hong Kong will rely on at last, and it is still the best way to go.

Conclusion: As we can see, despite the fact that we really confronted with severe problem with municipal solid waste to dispose in Hong Kong, there are still some demerits in the contemporary waste disposal management. Over all, we rely on landfills nowadays but the old MSW dispose method cannot satisfy the requirement of Hong Kong 4 years later, and the post-treatment of landfills needs to be improved. So Hong Kong is expected to establish an incinerator to deal with the urgent MSW problem. However, eventually, we should resort to the most eco-friendly method, recycling for long-term treatment for MSW. To make the process more successful eco-friendly, what we should do is to learn from other countries which have desirable and sustainable approaches for solid waste management and construct a cleaner Hong Kong.

Reference

1. Krista Mahr, Trash Talk: Hong Kongers Produce the Most Garbage in the World, TIME, Oct.26, 2010

2. Refuse Transfer Station Development Group, Waste Reduction and EcoPark Group, Environmental Infrastructure Division, Environmental Protection Department

3. What is a solar farm? Retrieved November 3th, 2014, from http://www.solar-trade.org.uk/solarFarms.cfm 4. Ben Messenger, 10 MW SOLAR FARM UNDERWAY ON WASTE MANAGEMENT LANDFILL IN NJ, Waste Management World, 26 September 2014

5. Andy Polhamus (Oct, 2014), from waste to watts: Deptford Kinsley Landfill transforms into solar farm, South Jersey Times, retrieved November 3th, 2014, from http://connect.nj.com/user/andypolhamus/posts.html

6. Fuel Mix in Hong Kong, retrieved November 3th, 2014, from https://www.clpgroup.com/nuclearenergy/Eng/energy/energy2_4.aspx 7. 姚寶，葵涌公園發展用地荒廢13載，文匯報，April. 18 2013

8. Tabata, T. (2013). Waste-to-energy incineration plants as greenhouse gas reducers: A case study of seven Japanese metropolises. Waste Management & Research, 0734242X13502385.

5. Hershkowitz, A., & Salerni, E. (1989). Municipal solid waste incineration in Japan. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 9(3), 257-278.

11 Elvis W. K. Au (2014), Proposed incinerator will meet latest EU emission standards, Retrieved November 3th, 2014, from http://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/1519567/proposed-incinerator-will-meet-latest-eu-emission-standards 6. Karen Woo, "Only Collection, No Recycling" The Dilemma of the Hong Kong Recycling Industry, Green Power, Feb 2013 7. Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Presence Switzerland, retrieved November 3th, 2014, from http://www.swissworld.org/en/environment/recycling/household_waste/