Macao threw away more rubbish last year, according to the Environmental Protection Bureau’s report on the city’s environmental state for 2021.
The bureau said that after a drop of around 20 per cent in 2020 from 2019, the total volume of solid waste generated in the city last year increased 3.6 per cent from 2020.
According to the report (available in Chinese and Portuguese), Macao disposed of 453,152 tonnes of solid waste last year, a 3.6 per cent increase from 2020 when 437,592 tonnes were dumped.
Last year, each person disposed of on average 1.82 kilogrammes of solid waste per day in Macao, a 4.6 per cent rise from 2020 when the figure was 1.74.
“Due to a significant decline in tourism activities resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, the total volume of solid waste that was disposed of in Macao in 2020 dropped around 20 per cent from 2019. However, with the gradual recovery of the city’s socioeconomic activities, the solid waste volume saw an increase again in 2021, at 3.6 per cent,” the report said.
The report also said that “although the disposal volume of solid waste per capita in Macao had been decreasing over the past two years, it is still relatively high compared to some cities in neighbouring regions.”
While each person disposed of 1.74 kilos of solid waste per day on average in Macao in 2020, the figures in the same year were 1.44 kilos in Hong Kong, 1.37 kilos in Singapore, 1 kilo in Beijing, 0.95 kilos in Shanghai, and 0.89 kilos in Guangzhou.
In addition, Macao’s electricity and water consumption also increased last year from 2020, 5 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively.
The report also stated that with the implementation of the government’s charging scheme on the disposal of construction waste early last year, the total volume of construction waste that was disposed of in the city’s only construction waste landfill in east Cotai last year dropped 29.8 per cent from 2020.
