Upgrading sewage treatment facilities to serve community needs in Hong Kong

In the rural district of Sha Tau Kok in Hong Kong, China, lies the Sha Tau Kok Sewage Treatment Works that provides secondary level treatment to sewage collected from the Sha Tau Kok township. The facility was originally commissioned in 1989 and recently, the Hong Kong government’s Drainage Services Department began a project to expand the treatment facility’s capacity. The plan is to increase the current capacity of 1660 m³/day to 5000 m³/day and to facilitate a possible further increase to 10,000 m³/day. This expansion will enable the plant to service the region’s continual development.

RSK company Binnies was appointed to the project to undertake the investigation, design and construction supervision for the expansion work. The construction contract was awarded and commenced in the fourth quarter of 2018 and the project team has overcome time constraints and numerous site challenges by integrating various innovative construction approaches. It worked to a consistently high standard to facilitate such a wide-ranging project remit. Not only did the team commission a temporary sewage treatment plant in just 18 months, but it also ensured that the plant operated continuously. No service interruptions were recorded, which was a remarkable achievement. Additionally, Binnies implemented the first full-scale application of the moving bed bioreactor (MBBR) process in any sewage treatment plant in Hong Kong.

Off-site, the project team has adopted a variety of innovative technologies, including a design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) approach for fabricating and installing the civil structures and electrical and mechanical equipment; and digitalising the site’s management and building information modelling (BIM) to enhance the project’s efficiency, safety and quality.