Waste Management Essay

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Have you imagined that electrical appliances would be useless in one day? Have you ever thought of living in total darkness? Concerns over energy crisis are alarmingly growing. Fossil fuels are estimated to deplete within 100 years at current consumption rate1. Being a member of global village, every cities and countries in the globe are responsible to pay joint effort to remedy the situation. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the fifth assessment report on 13 April, urging policymakers to put a halt to the use of non-renewable energy sources at once2. “The high speed mitigation train needs to leave the station very soon, and all of global society will have to get on board,” said IPCC’s chair Rajendra Pachauri3. As a citizen of Hong Kong, how much do you know about the waste treatment in this global city?

BY DEXTER NG

Everyday, 9,278 tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) are produced and disposed4. The current major waste treatment method is landfilling; however, assuming the current rate of disposal, all landfills are going to be full by 20195. Are there a solution to handle a myriad of daily MSW and switch to renewable energy source?

Studies have been carried out in Hong Kong to investigate which renewable energy sources would best fit Hong Kong in terms of long-term development. With reference to the study on potential applications of renewable energy in Hong Kong, energy from municipal solid waste (MSW) is one of the promising renewable energy sources. Do you know how energy is generated from waste?

Waste-to-energy (WTE) Technologies

Waste-to-energy (WTE), also known as Energy-from-waste (EFW), is a tec...

... middle of paper ...

...and steel, cement, primary aluminum production, metal casting, and glass industry. Originally, waste from these five sectors of industries has been regarded as less-efficient waste in energy conversion. However, this paper provided us an insight of applying WTE into these five sectors, as well as the benefits of WTE in the medium- and long-term development. With the benefits, perhaps after some time, Hong Kong would be one of the leading cities adopting these technologies in some ‘unexpected’ industries!

You may have gained some insights in the waste treatment industry. You may also be surprised by the technologies learnt. What important is not knowing the particular method or the measurement taken to deal with existing problems, but knowing Hong Kongers are indeed all giving their helping hands in building a better Hong Kong. Let’s be a responsible Hong Konger!

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