Our Community

Dirty, stinky alleys are back

by Connie Lee

A rat found its way out from the maze of refuse in the rear lane of Tsuen Nam
Road in Tai Wai and scurried across the puddles of filthy water in the ground
before disappearing again into the stacks of garbage.

People working and living in the neighbourhood face the scene day after
day. The place has re-emerged and remained a hygiene black spot since last
year although it was once removed from the government list in 2003.

"There are still rats and disgusting smell (in the rear lane)," said the chef of a restaurant in Tsuen Nam Road, who identified himself only as Mr Lee.

The rear lane located at 41-81 Tsuen Nam Road was one of the 85 "priority
district hygiene black spots" identified by the government's Team Clean in May 2003 in the wake of the SARS public health crisis. The lane was reported to have been cleaned and taken out from the list of black spots in October of the same year.

However, a section of the rear lane at 41-63 Tsuen Nam Road reappeared on
the list again in 2006.

"Although officers of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department
(FEHD) come to inspect regularly and wash the lane twice a week, the hygiene condition has not improved," Mr Lee said.

Responding to the problem, a spokeswoman for the Home Affairs Department just said government departments would "continue to carry out
routine cleaning".

But Sha Tin District Councillor Tang Wing-cheong, who also found the rear
lane almost as dirty as it was before 2003, said the current "routine" cleaning was not as effective as that done by Team Clean.

Team Clean, which was led by the then Chief Secretary for Administration Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, was set up in May 2003 after the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. It aimed to improve environmental
hygiene and cleanliness in Hong Kong.

The team directed stricter enforcement actions against offences like spitting and littering. A month-long exercise was also launched to clean up the 85 black spots that the team identified in the 18 districts, with volunteers being recruited to inspect and monitor the hygiene conditions of problematic spots.

After Team Clean was dismissed in August 2003, the Home Affairs Department took over the role in coordinating the cleaning measures of the various government departments and updating the hygiene black spots list.

The progress of the government's cleaning effort was said to be "satisfactory" in a report issued by the Audit Commission in 2005, with over 95 per cent of the black spots identified before November 2003 having been eradicated.

But today, some black spots have reappeared. Hygiene problems have also been found prevailing in a side lane of 18-20 Fuk Wing Street in Sham Shui Po, apart from that in the rear lane of Tsuen Nam Road in Tai Wai. This is despite the fact that the site was removed from the black spot list in 2004.

Construction materials were seen piling up on the lane while refuse was
discarded all over the lane. The ground was damp with water dribbling from
clogged drains in the buildings.

Leung Lai, vice chairman of the Sham Shui Po District Council, said dribbling
was the most serious problem of the lane and the persisted dripping had weakened the wall structure and caused cracks in the walls.

"There was no such situation in 2003 when the government focused on
eradicating the hygiene black spots," Mr Leung said.

In 2003, government departments had cleared the stagnant water, removed the dumps and fixed the broken drains, according to the Home Affairs Department.

Mr Leung blamed the deteriorated hygiene on the fading memory of SARS
and a drop in public awareness. The public might have accepted filthiness as a normal condition of rear lanes and they would not complain unless they were affected by problems like the breeding of mosquitoes, the district councillor said.

Chan Kam-tao, owner of the hardware store in Fuk Wing Street, said he did not worry about the possibility of contracting diseases that might be caused by the unsatisfactory hygiene condition. He found it normal for the lane to be filthy.

"It has been like this for ages. It (the measure of Team Clean) has not helped much. It (hygiene condition) is more or less the same in these shabby areas," he said.

A FEHD health inspector of cleaning in the district, Cheung Suk-fun, said her
office would only carry out investigation when a complaint was received. And there have been no complaints about the lane's hygiene, according to Chan Tat-wing, senior health inspector of the environmental hygiene section at the Sham Shui Po District Environment Hygiene Office.

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Baskets of restaurants' leftovers attract rats in the rear lane of Tsuen Nam Road in Tai Wai.