The sewage treatment works that we operate are all licensed under the Water Pollution Control Ordinance, and some have additional control under the Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance. Each month, self-monitoring results of the performance of the sewage treatment works are provided to the Environmental Protection Department for compliance check. In 2008, there were two non-compliance cases in the small scale outlying sewage treatment works, and the problems were rectified immediately.

In our construction sites, there were six convictions under environmental offences in 2008. Three of them were technical offences related to the compliance of requirement of opening a billing account under the Construction Waste Disposal Charging Scheme. We noticed that there was room for improvement in environmental compliance and had initiated preventive and corrective measures under our Environmental Management System.

To promote responsible behaviour at our construction sites, DSD continued to operate the Construction Sites Housekeeping Award Scheme in 2008. All contracts that had an active construction period of six months or more within the assessment period (from January to October, 2008) were included in the Scheme. Each construction site was visited four times by senior professional staff or chief engineer for assessment. The contractors and the consultants/in-house site supervisory staff engaged in the same contract had been working as a team in upholding their effort to keep DSD's sites clean, tidy, hygienic and environmentally friendly.