The Sheung Shui Slaughterhouse () is a

slaughterhouse A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...

in the outskirts of

Sheung Shui Sheung Shui (, literally "Above-water") is an area in the New Territories, Hong Kong. Sheung Shui Town, a part of this area, is part of the Fanling–Sheung Shui New Town in the North District of Hong Kong. Fanling Town is to its southea ...

New Territories The New Territories is one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of Hong Kong. Historically, it ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. The installation was built by China State Construction.Sheung Shui Slaughterhouse
- China State Construction International Holdings official site (Chinese) Construction began in February 1997, at a cost of

HK$ The Hong Kong dollar (, sign: HK$; code: HKD) is the official currency of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It is subdivided into 100 cents or 1000 mils. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is the monetary authority of Hong Kong and ...

1.858 billion. It covers 5.8

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...

s and is the largest slaughterhouse in Hong Kong, as well as being one of the largest in Asia according to the

Architectural Services Department The Architectural Services Department is a department of the Government of Hong Kong responsible for the design and construction of many public facilities throughout the territory. It is subordinate to the Works Branch of the Development Bu ...

. As of January 2000, pollution and hygienic controls of the slaughterhouse conform to international standard, and received

ISO 14001 ISO 14000 is a family of standards related to environmental management that exists to help organizations (a) minimize how their operations (processes, etc.) negatively affect the environment (i.e. cause adverse changes to air, water, or land); (b ...

environmental management certification.Hong Kong SAR Government newsletter
2000-7-27 (Chinese) The slaughterhouse is currently managed and operated by Ng Fung Hong Limited, who were contracted by the

Hong Kong Government The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, commonly known as the Hong Kong Government or HKSAR Government, refers to the Executive (government), executive authorities of Hong Kong Special administrative regions of China, ...

. Today, the slaughterhouse can accommodate 12,000

pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus s ...

s and 2200

cow Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

s. It is outfitted with

sewage treatment Sewage treatment (or domestic wastewater treatment, municipal wastewater treatment) is a type of wastewater treatment which aims to remove contaminants from sewage to produce an effluent that is suitable for discharge to the surrounding envir ...

, a water recycling plant and advanced slaughter machines which can operate mostly without manpower. The facility can slaughter up to 5000 pigs, 400 cows and 300 lambs per day.

History

The Sheung Shui Slaughterhouse replaced older slaughterhouses in

Kennedy Town Kennedy Town is at the western end of Sai Wan on Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong. It was named after Arthur Edward Kennedy, the 7th Governor of Hong Kong from 1872 to 1877. Administratively, it is part of Central and Western District. Due to its ...

Cheung Sha Wan Cheung Sha Wan is an area between Lai Chi Kok and Sham Shui Po in New Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is mainly residential to the north and south, with an industrial area in between. Administratively it is part of Sham Shui Po District, which also ...

and

Yuen Long Yuen Long is a town in the western New Territories, Hong Kong. To its west lie Hung Shui Kiu (), Tin Shui Wai, Lau Fau Shan and Ha Tsuen, to the south Shap Pat Heung and Tai Tong, to the east Au Tau and Kam Tin (), and to the north Nam Sang W ...

, which were closed for economic reasons as well as their proximity to urban areas. Reprovisioning the three abattoirs in a more remote area allowed the government to open 4.19 hectares of land for redevelopment of a type "more compatible with the surrounding areas". Additionally, the location in Sheung Shui, near the border with mainland China, allows livestock to be offloaded immediately after crossing the Hong Kong border, negating the need to run noisy and smelly livestock trains through developed areas. Construction of the slaughterhouse commenced on 18 February 1997. It was substantially completed in June 1999 and fully commissioned by March 2000.

Description

The slaughterhouse is a complex of several interconnected blocks. * Lairage block (38,000 square metres, 3 storeys) * Slaughter block (11,800 square metres, 3 storeys) * Meat despatch block (2,200 square metres, single storey) * Administration block (2,950 square metres, 4 storeys) * Platform and railway siding area (2,520 square metres, single storey) The designed daily throughput of the facility is 5,000 pigs, 100 suckling pigs, 400 cattle and 300 goats. There is an underground wastewater treatment plant of approximately 9,500 square metres. It can treat 5,000 square metres of wastewater per day. The effluent from the slaughterhouse is 10 times more concentrated than domestic effluent, so the on-site treatment plant uses bacteria and micro-organisms to treat the wastewater to domestic standard before discharging it to the adjacent Shek Wu Hui Sewage Treatment Works for final treatment. The abattoir incorporates several green features. A solar hot water system, comprising 450 solar panels on the rooftop of the meat despatch block, helps meet the daily hot water requirements of 630 cubic metres. A

heat pump A heat pump is a device that can heat a building (or part of a building) by transferring thermal energy from the outside using a refrigeration cycle. Many heat pumps can also operate in the opposite direction, cooling the building by removing h ...

makes use of heat from the air conditioning to further heat the water.

Greywater Greywater (or grey water, sullage, also spelled gray water in the United States) refers to domestic wastewater generated in households or office buildings from streams without fecal contamination, i.e., all streams except for the wastewater from ...

from the adjacent sewage treatment works is used for cooling the condenser of the slaughterhouse air conditioning plant. The Sheung Shui Slaughterhouse is the largest slaughterhouse in Hong Kong.

Transport

Before the Sheung Shui Slaughterhouse opened, the freight trains that carried

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals ...

from

Mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...

through the Lo Wu border station would terminate at

Hung Hom station Hung Hom () is a railway station in Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is an interchange station between the and the domestic services of the MTR network, as well as the southern terminus of cross-border through-trains to mainland China whic ...

, which was once the south-most end of former KCR British Section / East Rail. This slaughterhouse is set in the outskirts in Sheung Shui, next to the rail tracks of

MTR The Mass Transit Railway (MTR) is a major public transport network serving :Hong Kong. Operated by the MTR Corporation Limited (MTRCL), it consists of heavy rail, light rail, and feeder bus service centred on a 10-line rapid transit network ...

East Rail line The East Rail line () is one of ten lines of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) system in Hong Kong. It used to be one of the three lines of the Kowloon–Canton Railway (KCR) network. It was known as the KCR British Section () from 1910 to 1996, ...

between Lo Wu station and

Sheung Shui station Sheung Shui (; : , literally "Above-water") is the penultimate northbound station on the in Hong Kong. This station serves as the terminus of northbound trains after the Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau boundary crossings have closed for the day. It is ...

. A dedicated rail branch and freight station were built for unloading the livestock. This relieved the already busy East Rail line, which previously shared with the East Rail commuter trains and

Through Train A through service is a concept of passenger transport that involves a vehicle travelling between lines, networks or operators on a regularly specified schedule, on which the passenger can remain on board without alighting. It may be in form of eithe ...

service. The dedicated branch also avoids the waiting passengers and residents near East Rail, thus no longer exposing them to the stench from livestock trains.

References

External links

Abattoir & Meat Processing Operation
- Ng Fung Hong official site (English) {{coord, 22.512795, N, 114.117635, E, type:landmark, display=title Sheung Shui Agricultural buildings in Hong Kong

History

Description

Transport

See also

References

External links