The Green Island Cement company has cleared all technical obstacles to a controversial trial on waste incineration this month. After months of dry runs - burning without waste input - and technical fine-tuning of an incinerator built inside a cement factory at Tap Shek Kok in Tuen Mun, the company says it is ready any time to test the burner with waste.
A three to four-day trial is being scheduled this month with no more than 30 tonnes of waste to be burnt each day. The resulting ash will be stored for testing in cement-making. The trial is part of a research project in collaboration with the University of Science and Technology that began in 2001. It comes as the government prepares to consult the public on large-scale waste-treatment facilities such as incinerators. It will be the first waste incineration, apart from chemical and clinical waste burning, to be conducted in the city following the closure of the government’s Kwai Chung incinerator in May 1997.
