Kwai Chung and nearby container port get less sulphur pollution after start of fuel law

Sulphur pollution around Kwai Chung and the city's main container port has fallen markedly in the first week of this month, soon after the start of new laws on July 1 requiring ships to use cleaner fuel, a green group says.

The port is the world's fourth largest in terms of cargo throughput. Previous studies have found the area to be the worst hit by ship pollution, the city's biggest source of sulphur dioxide.

"The results show that if the administration has the will, there is a way to improve the air," Kwong Sum-yin, chief executive of the Clean Air Network environmental concern group, said yesterday.

Kwong's group recorded a 24-hour average of 12 micrograms of toxic sulphur dioxide per cubic metre in the area between July 1 - the day the anti-pollution mandate went into effect - and July 7.

The corresponding figures were 34mcg per cubic metre in the same period last year and 23mcg per cubic metre the year before that, Clean Air Network said.

It attributed the cleaner air to the new rule that forced ocean-going vessels, from tugboats to container ships, to switch to marine fuel of just 0.5 per cent sulphur when berthing in the city. This is lower than the international cap of 3.5 per cent.

In return, shipowners save half of their berthing fees through subsidies from the government.