Survey | Residents’ show lack of green awareness

DSPA acting director Vai Hoi Ieong

The Environmental Protection Bureau (DSPA) released its latest survey results on public environmental awareness to mark Earth Day (Apr 22). The result shows that Macau residents still lack a sense of responsibility and determination to adopt green practices.
The bureau has conducted the annual survey since 2010 in order to track residents’ awareness and practice of environmental protection. The survey results are also said to be an important basis for the bureau to lay down every year’s work policy.
According to the survey, over recent years, local residents’ environmental awareness has continued growing slightly, and has remained at a middle to upper level of above 3.5 points out of a scale of 5. However, over the past two years, a continued decline has been recorded in the public’s sense of environmental responsibility, while their practice of environmental protection has similarly started to decline.
As residents tend to think that taking environmental action would consume more of their time and money, the index of their environmental practices dropped from 5.04 to 4.67 last year, which indicates a mid to low level on the ten-point scale.
In addition, the survey suggests that people’s satisfaction with the current environment also remains at a mid to low level, whereas air quality has been the most worrying and least satisfying aspect. Light pollution and ecological conservation were also the lowest-scoring aspects, while the city’s noise level and ecological conservation have improved.
The 2014 survey collected 1,003 valid responses from local residents above the age of 15. Reflecting on the result, the DSPA acting director Vai Hoi Ieong stressed that controlled air pollution has always been the bureau’s top priority, and that this priority is being addressed in a series of policies tackling polluting emissions.
As for residents’ inadequate sense of environmental responsibility and practices, Vai maintained that the bureau will “continue strengthening promotional and educational activities, to coordinate with the multi-pronged environmental measures covering legislation, planning, monitoring, guidelines and subsidies.”
This year’s Earth Day is themed “It’s Our Turn to Lead.” Vai stated to local students attending the event that the theme is meant to emphasize that “every individual is an important actor of green initiatives, whereas the earth’s future is in the hands of everybody’s daily life.” In response, the DSPA also launched a public campaign calling for a reduction in the the use of plastics.

Levy on plastic bags and construction waste

The acting director of the DSPA revealed yesterday that the government would roll out public consultations on levying plastic bags and construction waste in the third and fourth quarters respectively this year. On the sidelines of the bureau’s Earth Day campaign, the acting director told media that the construction waste landfill located near the airport has been filled up, and that 80 percent of the waste might be recyclable. The authorities will set up a landfill selection zone this year to recycle the waste that can be used in land reclamations, and will transport the rest to Guangdong province for treatment.