German Industry and Commerce Ltd. (GIC) in collaboration with ALBA Group Asia and The Green Earth has produced a white paper that explores the potential of advanced waste sorting facilities in Hong Kong.
Waste is a global problem and one that, despite best endeavours, only continues to grow. Landfills are potentially hazardous and running out of capacity. Other solutions, such as energy from waste (EfW), are expensive to build and operate if they are to be environmentally sustainable. At the same time, there is increasing recognition that valuable resources are unnecessarily being wasted by being buried or burnt rather than being recovered.
The concept and use of advanced waste sorting facilities, or material recycling facilities, is widespread throughout developed countries. These advanced waste sorting facilities enable cities across the globe to improve recycling rates, minimise waste sent to landfills, and ultimately contribute to carbon reduction. Meanwhile, Hong Kong continues to depend on low-level separation and sorting with the bulk of the waste going to landfills and, in the future, to high-cost and low-efficiency EfW facilities. Due to its dense population and limited land resources, Hong Kong has huge potential to develop advanced sorting technologies and achieve a more circular economy through effective and efficient recycling and waste management.
A German innovative environmental solution provider, ALBA Group Asia’s vision to achieve a world without waste resonates with the Hong Kong Government’s ambition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. In a meeting on 7 July, GIC and ALBA Group Asia had the opportunity to present their ideas to the Director of Environmental Protection, Dr Samuel Chui, and his colleagues.
Together, we look forward to assisting Hong Kong in achieving its timely pursuit of carbon neutrality with the development of advanced sorting facilities as part of a holistic waste management strategy.
