Solid Waste

Hong Kong’s new environment minister, Wong Kam-sing, says now is the right time to start charging households for waste disposal. This is a distinctly tougher line on the issue than that taken by Edward Yau, Wong’s predecessor. Speaking on a radio program yesterday, Wong cited a recent survey that found six in every 10 respondents support a solid-waste charging scheme under the polluter-pays principle. Wong said that "a stable economic outlook in the city provided a favorable environment in which to launch a waste charge, given that more people can afford to pay."

Ten machines, the size of big refrigerators, have been deployed at major subways and bus stops around China’s capital, Beijing, which turn trash into treasure while encouraging the public to recycle and sort garbage.

Vietnam is in need of about USD7.6 billion in funding for environmental protection for all sectors and industries, said Dang Van Loi, deputy head of the Pollution Management Department under the Vietnam Environment Administration yesterday.

Vietnam’s Central Quang Ngai Province's Natural Resources and Environment Department will force enterprises causing serious environmental pollution to make good the damage, and repeat offenders will be shut down, according to Department Director Le My Lien.

The Rio+20 Earth Summit begins in two days time. It provides a platform for world leaders, the private sector, NGOs, campaign groups and many others to come together to discuss how to develop a green economy, how to eradicate poverty and what an institutional framework for sustainable development would look like. For the third Earth Summit (the 2nd was in Johannesburg 10 years ago) there are seven priority areas: decent jobs, energy, building sustainable cities, food security and sustainable agriculture, water, oceans and disaster readiness. That’s a lot to cover in three days.

Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region will start constructing its first resource recycling market at the end of June in the regional capital of Lhasa.

The world continues to speed down an unsustainable path, despite over 500 internationally agreed goals and objectives to support the sustainable management of the environment and improve human well-being, according to a new and wide-ranging assessment co-ordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The fifth edition of the Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-5), launched Wednesday in Beijing on the eve of the Rio+20 Summit, assessed 90 of the most-important environmental goals and objectives and found that significant progress had only been made in four.

UK-based waste to biofuel specialist, Gazasia is to begin development of a vehicle fuel made from organic waste products from landfill in the Philippines in conjunction with Manila-listed Aboitiz Equity Ventures.

China's sustainable development faces greater challenges ranging from a fragile natural ecological environment to resource constraints, senior Chinese officials said ahead of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio de Janeiro.