Solid Waste

Management

2019/5/3 1
Outline
1. Introduction
2. Refuse Disposal/collection in Buildings
3. Transfer Station
4. Solid Waste Disposal Methods
5. Sanitary Landfills
6. Legislation of Waste Control/Management
7. Solid Waste Management Strategy in Hong Kong
8. Construction & Environment
9. Environmental Management System
10. Appendix 1 – Wastes

11. Appendix 2 – What have we done ?

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 Introduction
1. Classification of Solid Wastes
2. Composition of Wastes in Hong Kong
3. Recycle, Recover, and other pretreatment processes
4. Summary of Waste Disposal Methods
5. What are the problems we are facing on solid waste
disposal ?

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Classification of Solid Wastes

• Domestic wastes
• Commercial wastes
• Industrial wastes including food-processing residue,
ash, plastic, package wastes, etc.
• Construction wastes
• Hospital wastes
• Bulky waste including trees, furniture, telephone poles,
etc.
• Hazardous wastes comprising of explosives,
radioactive materials, toxic material, etc.
• Others : marine mud, sludge, livestock, abattoir, PFA,
etc.
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Methods of Waste Disposal

• Domestic Wastes – by landfill, incineration, recycling

• Construction wastes – by public dump, recycle,
landfill,
• Dredged & Excavated spoil – by marine dumping,
public dumping
• Etc…….

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What are the problems with solid wastes ?

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What are the major solid wastes in HK ?

• Construction & Demolition

• Domestics
• Industrial
• Commercial
• Special

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How Construction Wastes are disposed of ?
• Reclamation (public dump)
• By landfills

• Moving towards more dumping dump

• Not much reuse

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What are the major composition of Domestic Wastes ?

• Putrescibles
• Papers
• Plastics
• Others
• Textiles, metals, Glass, Bulky wastes

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What are the major composition of Industrial & Commercial
Wastes ?

• Papers
• Plastics
• Rattan/Wood
• Putrescibles
• Others
• Metals, glass, bulky wastes

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Disposal of chemical wastes

• Chemical wastes disposed at Chemical wastes

Treatment centre at Tsing Yi,
• Others by landfills

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What conclusion can you draw ?

• Disposal is mainly one-way result in resource scarcity

at one end and disposal problems at the other.
• Papers, Construction wastes, glass, etc. are valuable
wastes that can be recycled, reused, recover
• Government should promote to use less and produce
less wastes
• A lot of wastes are disposed of by landfill that requires
a lot of land
• Landfill also creates environmental problems such as
groundwater, air and noise pollution, explosion, traffic,
disease, etc.
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What else can we do ?

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Use of Pre-treatment process
(see figure)

• Grinding
• Pulverizing

• Sorting
• Separating
• Compacting

• Reuse, Recycle
• Disposed of by landfill, incineration,
• Generate power
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Waste Recover in HK

• Papers, Metals
• Glass
• Rubber tyres

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What other countries are doing ?

• Recycling and resource recovery in Japan – well

organised and successful
• Use of other methods such as composting, pyrolysis,
Anaerobic digestion

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Solid Waste
Disposal Path

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Solid Waste Disposal Path

• Waste Collection
• Waste Reception & Transfer
• Waste disposal

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Waste Collection in Building

• Refuse chute
• Pneumatic system
• On-site incineration

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What are the pros and cons of the following
Waste Collection methods ?

• Refuse chute
• Pneumatic system
• On-site incineration

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Waste Reception & Transfer

• Refuse transfer stations

• Refuse collection points
• Barge loading areas
• Waste handling facilities

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Solid Disposal Methods
• Open dumping
• Sanitary landfill
• Incineration
• Composting
• Pyrolysis
• High-temperature
• Size reduction (shredding, grinding
pulverizing)
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Transfer Station

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What are the functions of a transfer station ?

• Compaction
• Size reduction by grinding, shredding, pulverising
• Material recovery
• Loading for transportation

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What are the considerations of a transfer
station ?

• Haul distance to the disposal site

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Transfer Station in HK

• 1992 – Island East

• 1994 - Sha Tin
• 1997 – Island west, Kowloon west
• 1998 - outlying islands
• 2000 - NWNT
• 2005 - NNT

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Solid Waste Disposal Methods

• Open dumping
• Sanitary landfill
• Incineration
• Composting
• Pyrolysis
• High-temperature
• Size reduction
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Sanitary
Landfill

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Pros of Sanitary Landfill
• Process is sanitary
• Highly skilled personnel not required
• After restoration, landfill site can become recreational
land
• Natural resource returned to land

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Cons of Sanitary Landfill

• Large area is required

• Transportation cost
• Produce hazardous gas
• Ground and Surface Water contamination

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Selection of Landfill site
• Economic
• Socioeconomic
• Environmental/Geotechnical

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Process of Landfill
• Trench method – trucks dump the wastes
into trench and a bulldozer spreads &
compacts, and covers them at the end of
day
• Area method – bulldozers spread out the
waste and a scraper hauls the cover
materials
• Ramp method – the wastes are compacted
but the cover is excavated directly in front
of the working face
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What are the problems with landfill ?

• Groundwater contamination by
leachate
• Gas generation

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What is leachate ?
• Leachate is a liquid produced from
a landfill that contains dissolved,
suspended and/or microbial
contaminants from solid wastes

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How leachate can be contained ?
1. Provide soil cover and surface drainage to
prevent infiltration of rain
2. Liners to contain or attenuate the leachates

3. Use under drains (single or double) to collect

the leachate for further treatment

4. Use slurry cut off wall/trench to contain the
leachate
5. To select a site in arid area

6. To select a site above ground water

7. To continuously monitor groundwater quality

in the vicinity of the site
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What typical gases are generated from landfill ?

• CH4
• CO
• H2S
• N2
• NH4
• H2
• …
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How Gas Generation is controlled ?

1. Passive Venting – the local geology

allows the migration of gas to be
collected by perimeter trench
2. Active Venting – install gas
extraction vent which is connected
to a vacuum or blower to force the
gas for collection

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What Constitute a good landfill ?

 Provide Extensive protection on

1. Aesthetics measures regarding health
and safety and quality of life of
neighbours or pass by
2. Ground water protection
3. Surface water protection
4. Control of landfill gas
5. On site health & safety
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Aesthetics

1. Provide slope berm and vegetation

along the perimeter of the site
2. Provide dust screen
3. Prevent wind-blown dust
4. Prevent erosion and animals
5. Do not allow ponding of water
6. Compact and cover waste daily
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Groundwater protection

1. Provide liner
2. Provide leachate collection system
3. No groundwater around site
4. Provide ground water monitoring

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Surface water protection

1. Choose site in arid (dry) area

2. Provide surface drainage to divert
surface runoff
3. No ponding of water on site

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Control of landfill gas

1. Provide fully lined landfill

2. Provide active venting system
3. Choose site away from people
4. Monitor gas around site

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On site health & safety

1. Cover soil daily

2. Confine in-coming waste to one
working area
3. Provide safety training and safety
procedures

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Solid waste disposal
• Open dumping
• Sanitary landfill
• Incineration
• Composting
• Pyrolysis
• High-temperature
• Size reduction
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What is incineration ?

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What are the pros and cons of incineration ?

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What is composting ?

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What is pyrolysis ?

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What is high temperature Incineration ?

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Comparing the cost of incineration and
landfill

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 Legislation for
Waste Management

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What are the legislation for Waste
Management

• Waste Disposal Ordinance, 1980-

responsible for licensing of all types
of wastes
• Regulations for livestock wastes in
1987.
• Regulations for chemical waste
disposal, 1992.
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What are the industries and community
facilities that require special requirements for
waste disposal ?
• Industries e.g.
• Electricity, gas generation
• Metal finishing
• Printed circuit board,
• Tannery processing
• ..etc
• Community facilities e.g.
• abattoirs
• Hospitals
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Government structure
• Policy Development – Environmental
Protection Department
• Service Provision – Refuse collection (FEH);
Special Waste collection (EPD); Solid Waste
disposal (EPD); Special waste disposal (EPD);
Sewage treatment (DSD)
• Legislation enforcement – Waste
import/export (EPD); Livestock waste (EPD);
Marine dumping (EPD); Domestic waste
storing, collection, littering (FEH);

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Solid Waste
Management in HK

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 Waste Management in HK
1. Municpal disposal by - 3 large landfills, 9 planned transfer
stations
2. Construction wastes disposal by - public dump for
reclamation after segregation, sorting and recycling. Also
adopt Polluters Pay Principle
3. 30% clinical waste by incineration and 70% by landfill
4. Marine mud by controlled dumping at specified seabed
5. Waste reduction Plan by
1. Waste minimisation by changes in people’s practice
2. Waste recovery and recycling
3. Reduce the volume of waste
4. Disposal in environmentally satisfactory ways
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Environment &
Construction

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Impact of Construction
1. Continuous reclamation 1. Cause changes to
ecosystem
2. Extraction of fossil fuel 2. Loss of forest
and minerals
3. Consumption of 3. Loss of cultivated land
resources
4. Construction activities 4. Air, noise, groundwater,
ozone pollution

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Measures to reduce Impact to
Environment

1. Reuse of building materials – e.g. use brick on

pavement surface instead of concrete
2. Recycle of materials – e.g. Use crushed
concrete for roadbase
3. Reduce energy consumption – e.g. use less
energy means less electricity means less
wastes from electric company
4. Design & build energy efficient buildings
5. Promotion by education programme
6. Conduct EIA and EMS
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Environmental Management
System

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What is a EMS
• EMS is a systematic approach for
implementing environment
management particularly at
organisation level.
• Through identifying, minimising,
preventing and managing the
environment impacts

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What does EMS consist ?
• 1. Environmental policy
• 2. Organisation Structure
• 3. Environmental Management
Programme
• 4. Audit of the programme &
system

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Why EMS ?
• Comply with legislation
• Demand from customers
• Competition
• Save cost
• Reduce risk
• Investment approval
• Pressure from environmentalists
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What is ISO14000 ?
• A series of standards on
environmental management
• ISO14001 set out the framework in
management system for
• tracking environmental
performance,
• setting objectives,
• developing procedures, and
• reviewing progress.
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 END
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