'Matthew Cheung Needs To Be HK's New Rubbish Tsar'

The DAB party on Wednesday accused officials of shirking their responsibilities in tackling illegal waste dumping in Hong Kong, and said the Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung needs to take charge and set up a new inter-departmental working group to clamp down on the problem.

The pro-government party said a study it conducted recently found a 40 percent surge in the number of fly-tipping ‘black-spots’ across the city – areas where they found large piles of illegally-dumped rubbish – compared with a similar survey held in January.

DAB legislator Ben Chan is worried that things will only get worse after the government implements its waste-charging plan – where residents will have to pay to get rid of their household trash.

He said government departments appear to be passing the buck to each other when it comes to tackling the problem, and this fragmented approach is not working.

“I think the government departments are shirking their responsibilities nowadays”, Chan said, “and the problem still cannot be solved by each department individually.”

“So I think… the Chief Secretary should try to manage this problem [with a] cross-departmental policy.”