Dumping remains rampant,despite campaigns

The Cleansing Services Department collected a staggering 3,677 tonnes of material dumped in the countryside in the first three months of the year, underlining the ever-pressing problem of illegal dumping.

All kinds of rubbish, from beer bottles to industrial material, were still being blatantly dumped everywhere, from valleys to industrial estates and main roads, the Resources and Infrastructure Ministry lamented yesterday.

The service for the collection of bulky waste from households is provided free of charge, yet many seem to find it more convenient to throw their unnecessary belongings by the roadside or in some field.

"Despite nine years of the Clean Up the World Campaign, we've remained in the same waters year in, year out," a spokesman for the ministry told The Times.

Last year, a total of 16,000 tonnes of dumped material were collected from roads, valleys and industrial areas in what seems like a persistent nationwide effort to turn the island into one big landfill.

The Resources Ministry said the pattern of dumping remains the same. In some cases, entire bathrooms, complete with tiles, were dumped in the countryside. Dumped white goods keep sprouting up on a daily basis, even along main roads, the spokesman said.

The problem of construction waste had even worsened since the fees for dumping such material increased.

The spokesman said that 460 people had availed themselves of the freephone system introduced in May 2004, on which one can report illegal dumping.

The Cabinet had agreed to recruit plainclothes wardens who pursue litter louts as part of a "zero-tolerance" approach to littering and dumping. However, a planned Litter Act, which would also lay down stiffer fines, has yet to come into force even if last November the government said it would be implemented by the end of March.

Contacted yesterday, a spokesman for the Environment Ministry insisted that the new litter regulations were still "on course".