By Darren Cheng
It was nine after dinnertime, and Un Un, a university student, was taking his home garbage down to a rubbish collection bin on the roadside in San Kiu. The bin was almost full; he tiptoed and threw it, at the same time covering his nose and mouth by hand. An old woman who followed Un Un just put the garbage next to the bin instead.
Solid waste has become problematic in Macao. The capacity of garbage bins does not meet the needs of citizens. Rubbish was thrown out of garbage bins when they were full. Sanitation and odor become the biggest concerns.
The capacity of garbage bins does not meet the needs of citizens.
The amount of waste per capita in Macao was 1.64 kg, which was higher than Hong Kong’s 1.27 kg, according to the Environment report of Macao 2011 by the Bureau of Environmental Protection (DSPA). From the report, Macao came to the first place in terms of waste per capita among Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Taipei.
Incineration is the main method of processing urban solid waste in Macao. Incineration can greatly reduce the volume of solid waste and utilize the potential energy of the waste to generate electricity. With full payload operations, generators can produce 28.7-megawatt electricity per hour. Among it, 7 megawatts are used for its own operation and 21.7 megawatts can be delivered to the public power grid. However, 21.7 megawatts are only 3% of the total consumption of electricity in Macao and incineration produces a lot of ash pollution in the air. It is not an effective and economical way to process solid waste in Macao. Instead, it is sacrificing public health.
Hong Kong, the neighboring city of Macao, mainly uses landfill for solid waste disposal. Landfill occupies huge tracts of valuable land resources and releases biogas, whose bad smell affects residents nearby and arouses hygiene problems. Macao is a small city which has only 31 square kilometers of land, landfill thus is a costly method to process urban solid waste for Macao.
The possible solution to minimize the amount of waste may be to popularize the concept of recycling. The rate of garbage recycling is low in Macao, which is only 20.6% while Hong Kong has the rate of 48%. There are about 281 sets of recycle bins around Macao. It is worth to promote the importance of recycling to residents so as to improve the quality of living environment.
The response from DSPA was that the Macao government promotes waste recycling and reduction actively. Besides placing recycle bins in news public housing estates and all ports of entry to collect plastic bottles, aluminum cans and paper regularly, DSPA also launched “Ecofun” activities, which is a reward program, to encourage citizen to develop the habits of waste separation and recycling. All resources collected by the Macao Residue System Company (CSR) will be transported to neighboring regions for subsequent recycling processes. More information of Ecofun and the location of recycle bins can be downloaded from the DSPA website (https://www.dspa.gov.mo/ecofunweb/) and Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau website (https://www.iacm.gov.mo/c/facility/table/recyclebin/).