Construction waste management in Hong Kong's low carbon city development : 10 years, no change?

Construction waste is of grave concern in Hong Kong. Construction waste normally ends in landfill, which not only results in extensive amounts of pollution, but also places tremendous pressure on the valuable landfill space in this compact city. Against the backdrop of low carbon city development, a series of initiatives have been introduced over the past years to deal with the construction waste in Hong Kong. Whilst several sources have reported that such initiatives are largely effective, voices have also been heard that construction waste management (CWM) in Hong Kong has not really progressed as it should have but with cosmetic smoke and mirrors. This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of CWM in Hong Kong. Data mining is considered a suitable and powerful methodology for this study. The results indicate that solid waste generated from producing every million Hong Kong dollars' construction work has been significantly reduced to 20 tons in recent years from 40-70 tons during the first half of the last decade (2000-2005). The Construction Waste Disposal Charging Scheme (CWDCS) and its associated measures implemented in 2006 have the largest magnitude in terms of genuinely reducing construction waste both on-site and disposal of at landfills. The inert and non-inert dichotomy as a CWM philosophy has helped divert the inert construction materials to public filling facilities.