Agency investigation reveals irregularities at nine recycling sites

October 07, 2016 05:40:54 AM

By Anil Mathews

BEIJING (Scrap Monster): The operation carried out by the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department (EPD) in partnership with other agencies have revealed illegal collection and storage of large quantities of illegal chemical waste. The operation was held between September 26th and October 4th at a number of recycling facilities across North District in the New Territories, in collaboration with other agencies including the Fire Services Department (FSD), the Hong Kong Police Force and the Planning Department (PlanD). The agency has decided to launch prosecution against violators.

The EPD operation titled “Operation Dawn” was carried out at a number of open waste recycling facilities to check whether their operations are in line with the state rules and regulations. Apart from inspection at sites, the authorities had also collected soil samples from nearby areas to check pollution levels of surrounding environment. The operation notified nine recycling facilities in Hung Lung Hang, North District against violation of Waste Disposal Ordinance and the Waste Disposal (Chemical Waste) (General) Regulation.

According to state laws, any person or firm involved in collection, storage, disposal, imports or exports of chemical waste must possess necessary permit from the EPD. All these nine recycling facilities had not obtained permit from authorities. Nearly 3,500 LCD televisions including more than 1,100 large sized waste LCDs were seized during the operation. According to EPD estimates, the export market value of the seized devices amounted to not less than HK$2 million. Most importantly, storage and dismantling of electronic waste such as used LCDs could cause serious health risks and environmental pollution as they contain high levels of toxic metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium.

The EPD authorities cautioned recycling facilities to ensure that all chemical waste is handled properly so as to avoid pollution. The agency is presently investigating the operations of accused recycling facilities to gather evidences for further prosecutions. Similar operations in partnership with other departments will be carried in future as well, added EPD spokesperson.

The Hong Kong EPD had come under severe criticism for their failure to prevent illegal shipments of electronic waste from developed countries. In a bid to track the e-waste from recycling locations, BAN had placed cell-phone sized GPS tracker devices to almost 200 non-functioning printers and monitors and dropped them at various locations within the US during the second half of 2015. The organization has been tracking these devices since then. Until now, 62 pieces of equipment have ended up in countries where e-waste imports are banned by law. This equates to almost one third of the total devices tracked during this period. The BAN report also stated that 37 out of these 62 devices had ended up in Hong Kong.

A recent report published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) had noted that nearly 60% to 90% of the world’s electronic waste are traded or dumped illegally. The report had stated that Africa and Asia are the key destinations of hazardous electronic waste.