A three-week Hong Kong-wide clean-up campaign has started for the Year of the Rooster.

The Year-end Clean-up Operation 2005 will feature a wide range of intensified cleaning and mosquito and rodent control measures in all districts to tie in with the lunar year-end tradition.

The Food & Environmental Hygiene Department will adopt a zero-tolerance approach to offences under the Fixed Penalty (Public Cleanliness Offences) Ordinance, including littering, feeding feral birds, spitting, illegal bill posting and dog fouling.

Until February 6, the department will step up inspections and cleaning at markets, cooked food centres, hawker bazaars, public toilets and bathhouses, refuse collection points, streets and other public places.

Intensive efforts combating mosquito breeding will continue. The operations will focus on old tenement buildings, village houses and passenger and cargo and container terminals.

Clean campaign

Action areas include:

* cleaning of streets and public places, including intensive washing of over 700 hygiene blackspots (in 463 streets and 286 lanes);

* stepped up inspections at 85 markets, 50 cooked food centres and 14 hawker bazaars to encourage stallholders to clean their own stalls and remove articles from the top of the stalls, and stringent enforcement action against dirty stalls, passage obstruction and exposure of food;

* strengthened cleaning and washing services at 84 hawker permitted places, fixed pitch areas, hawker concentrated areas and more litterbins at these sites;

* strengthened cleaning services at 318 public toilets and 28 public bathhouses managed by the department;

* extension of the opening hours of 286 refuse collection points when necessary, and an additional 75 temporary junk collection points for the public to dispose of large and useless furniture and articles conveniently;

* inspection of the communal parts of over 2,000 buildings;

* strengthened cleaning and mosquito control measures in the common parts of about 2,000 tenement buildings, over 10,000 village-type houses, 27 cargo and passenger terminals, 1,000 schools and 400 private housing estates, and inspections of over 700 building and vacant sites. Enforcement action will be stepped up if necessary;

* placement of rat bait in over 10,000 public areas to eliminate rat breeding and stepped up vermin and pest control measures; and,

* reminding operators of food establishments not to place baskets in the shop fronts for storage of food remnants.