Domestic Waste

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With the economic growth, the living standards of people in Hong Kong become higher and higher. Meanwhile, we are producing more and more waste, especially the domestic waste. According to the Environmental Protection Department (2013), the existing landfills would probably be exhausted one by one by 2020 if the waste level continue to increase at current level (¶13). Therefore, we should take action immediately to find a solution so as to deal with the domestic waste problem. To ameliorate the problem, the possible solutions could be building incinerators, enlarging the area for landfills and reducing the amount of domestic waste, with the last one being the best solution. One of the possible solutions might be to build incinerators. Wastes from different sources could be collected together and sent to the incinerators which burn them into ashes to reduce the volume before sending to the landfills. The decrease in volume of waste might extend the life of existing landfills. Nevertheless, the environment around the incinerators could become worsen. The gas emitted during the operation of incinerators would contaminate the air around. Although the incinerators should be built with good filters, some tiny particles would not be filtered but go outside together with the gas emitted. Besides, the building of incinerators is likely to lower the living standard of citizens in the neighborhood. Not only the gas emitted while burning the waste would affect their health, the noise produced by the trucks and the construction of incinerators would make them annoyed. Moreover, according to the ‘Not in My Back Yard’ phenomenon, this solution would probably be vigorously rejected by the citizens living around the site selected for building th... ... middle of paper ... ...ple and change their habit, this solution should be the most efficient to deal with the problem of domestic waste. Works Cited Chong, W. (2013, June 27). Don't dump it all on us. The Standard, n.p. Retrieved November 27, 2013 from the World Wide Web: http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=134996&sid=39876288&con_type=1 Hong Kong SAR Government, Environmental Protection Department. (2013). Hong Kong’s environment – Waste. Hong Kong: Author. Retrieved November 25, 2013 from the World Wide Web: http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/waste/waste_maincontent.html Hong Kong SAR Government, Environmental Protection Department. (2012). Monitoring of solid waste in Hong Kong – Waste statistics for 2011. Hong Kong: Author. Retrieved November 25, 2013 from the World Wide Web: https://www.wastereduction.gov.hk/en/materials/info/msw2011.pdf

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