Government departments were alerted to the problem as far back as 2008
HARMINDER.SINGH@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Tuesday, 12 July, 2016, 11:21pm
Paul Zimmerman , Moran Zukerman and Julia Leung from Plastic Free Seas, handed the waste to the government. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
Dangers lurking among the recent deluge of waste washing ashore on Hong Kong were highlighted on Tuesday, as beach clean-up campaigners displayed used and unused medical waste collected from a Discovery Bay beach. They urged the government to find the source of the medical waste and put a stop to it.
Local resident Moran Zukerman collected several boxes of human and veterinary medical waste from Sam Pak Wan in Lantau over two months. His haul contained glass and plastic bottles, tablet blister packaging, vials, ointments, IV bags, and syringes – some with the needle still on.
The discovery of medical waste adds danger to beach clean-ups, to which some families take their children. “Which is a pity, because we need a lot of beach cleaning,” said southern district councillor, Paul Zimmerman.
Some of the medical waste found on the beach. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
“And this is only one beach ... and only part of what one person found. Imagine if you go to all the beaches in Hong Kong and how much you can find. It’s a systemic problem.”
Julia Leung, programme manager of Plastic Free Seas, said they had been alerting the Environmental Protection Department to the problem of medical waste washing up on Hong Kong beaches since 2008. The EPD and the Marine Department came to the affected beaches and cleaned up the waste, but took no action towards finding the source of the waste, the group said.
Zimmerman said it was “very easy to identify where it came from” as the waste had labels with the factory name and address. Many of the items had Guangdong addresses, and simplified Chinese characters.
“You can go to the factory, you can go to the hospital, and find out where it came from and how it ended up in our water,” he said.
The badge of a Guangdong government official was also among the debris, bolstering claims that the waste washing up on Hong Kong beaches is coming from the mainland.
And Zukerman dismissed suggestions the waste was old and floating around in the sea for years, as manufacturing dates on some of the medical items showed they were made as recent as April of this year, “so it only takes one or two months for them to arrive in Hong Kong.”
The campaigners found plenty of bottles. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
Zukerman and Plastic Free Seas both said the waste was likely to be eaten by fish, and subsequently eaten by humans. Zuckerman said: “Since I found all these items in the water, until further notice, I am done with fish.”
He said not all medical waste can float, and some stays at the bottom of ocean, “which means the quantity is much more severe than what shows up at the shore.”
The campaigners handed a representative from the EPD a list of items collected, as well as a letter asking the department to investigate the source of the waste. They also delivered boxes of medical waste to the department.
The EPD was unavailable for comment.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1989086/campaigners-hand-government-medical-waste-washed
