…says an otherwise delightful email from Lantau. With just a day to go before the deadline for submissions, here’s the latest on that incinerator saga. Citizens have drawn up a plan (here’s a summary and a brochure) that they say is cheaper, cleaner, more sensible, greener and generally better than the government’s waste strategy, which involves building a massive facility on reclamation at Shek Kwu Chau, the island south of Lantau.
Why would our top officials go for an option that is worse in every way than the alternative in the Living Island Movement/Designing HK/Dolphin fans/etc proposal? Where do you start? It’s easier for them. It doesn’t upset vested interests like New Territories land owners. It does please vested interests like the construction industry and bureaucrats who like big projects to run. This could be a long list. I won’t mention the scurrilous rumour about members of Islands District Council backing the government so their relatives can start up little ‘fish farms’ that will qualify them for hundreds of thousands of dollars of government compensation every year, because who would imagine hard-working local representatives would ever do such a thing?
Even if you’re not interested in the fate of Shek Kwu island, world’s only habitat of the lesser green-tongued banana rat, bear in mind that (by my reckoning) the activists’ proposal would put waste management facilities delightfully close to both Disneyland and potentially valuable residential sites owned by senior figures in the Heung Yee Kuk – so what’s not to like?
A lesser green-tongued banana rat yesterday
That animal looks like one of the drug rehab residents of the island. See kids drugs are bad mmmmokay.
Cute bat.
It’s cheaper, cleaner, more sensible, greener and generally better than the government’s waste strategy, you say? Clearly, it’s never going to happen then. Which is s shame.
Personally, I think they should build a big incinerator in that space under the government offices at Tamar. And connect the chimney into the building’s ventilation system since, as we keep being told, there are minimal air quality impacts from the incinerator.
I agree with Big Al
The energy bill for the new Tamar office ( ‘Duck’s Folly’ is its correct name I recall… BTW where the fuck is the duck these days?) is about 6 x per sq foot more than the old place , despite being billed as a super energy efficient design.
So the new incinerator should indeed be built under Duck’s Folly to test the govt’s technical predictions – which predictions judging by the energy consumed by Duck’s Folly will be as hopelessly wrong as Tsang’s budgets.
And even if the incinerator is clean , we need the energy to run Tamar.
See our special report tonight at 20.30 PM (19.30 Thai time) on how a native Hong Kong duck recently metamorphosed into a lesser green-tongued banana rat (minus the bow tie)
I’m hoping that the building of a big fat juicy insinuator off southern Lantau will result in an exodus of rich gweilos from the island. There’s something rather unpleasant about their holier-than-thou NIMBYist attitudes. Deep down, all they’re really concerned about is their house values. Thus, they expend huge amounts of time and mental energy fretting about the big whack they’ll likely incur when the smoke-stacks start a-belching.
Who’s making big fat incinerations about the motives of Lantau dwellers?
In other news, “C Y Leung said the new reporting requirements for Special Administrative Region chief executives were aimed at bringing them in line with OTHER local governments in mainland China” (http://rthk.hk/rthk/news/englishnews/news.htm?hightlight&20131219&56&971725). Says it all, really.
Oh, and incidentally, after a quarter of a century of waiting, we’re getting “democracy” with genuine Chinese characteristics — what a surprise.
Lantau’s rich gweilo contingent really are the FILTH.
Unfit for purpose in their own countries, they can’t even hack it here on HK Island.
I’m looking forward to picking up several of their soft-priced properties shortly after Incinerator-1 comes on line. Most locals and Mainlanders don’t give a damn about air-borne nano-particles; they shall be milked.
@Sylvia’s mother, the analysis is spot on. Can you cut me in on the deal? Will that mean the end of those Rat Bay parties where they all throw their golf cart keys into the bowl on the table and pick out another one?