Hong Kong's Pathetic Glass Recycling Efforts

There's still lots of glass that isn't recycled in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong government is really behind when it comes to recycling and we've mentioned it before. Last year over 13,000 tonnes of glass was collected, a more than 60 percent increase from the year before. While that's an impressive-sounding jump, consider there are 7 million people who live in the city, many of whom have some kind of glass bottle or container they should be recycling.

And now that Hong Kong has appointed two glass management contractors to recycle glass, the government claims they can't get collect enough glass. So now it wants its citizens to do that for them.

Groups like Green Glass Green started glass recycling in 2010

But it's very easy for the government to do this -- legislate all restaurants, bars and hotels to collect all the glass bottles and have them either sent to a collection centre or sent to a central location where the glass can be picked up. Anyone caught throwing glass in the garbage should be fined an exorbitant amount.

How difficult is that?

One wine importer even wrote a letter to the editor estimating that as the government has issued over 1,000 import licenses (many of them related to wine), there must be some 1 million glass bottles alone that could be recycled in a year.

The government makes it sound like a gargantuan task when really everyone wants to help out but the systems aren't really in place.

Put your glass in this container!

I'm lucky to have a glass collection bin downstairs from where I live; the glass bin filled up so fast that a second one had to be installed.

The same could be said for metal cans and paper products. Admittedly plastic is difficult to tackle with the various different grades, but it's not impossible. It's just that the authorities need to do more to educate residents about what can be recycled and how it's done.

Glass recycling and collecting was started by non profit green groups since at least 2010 and only now is the government seriously stepping up recycling efforts...
 

Hong Kong Needs to Cut Paper Use

Some 8 million lai see envelopes were collected last year

Just before Lunar New Year, many companies send me lai see envelopes and I try to give them to colleagues to use, or I keep them. So I was very pleased to find out I could take them to a collection point at my apartment building, where they would be picked up by an environmental group called Greeners Action.

Yesterday I took a bag of unused and used lai see envelopes to the box. I had so many that I had to ask the attendant to lift the lid of the box instead of putting them through the slot at the top of the lid, and when he did, I was pleased to find there were already stacks of red envelopes in there.

Please put your lai see envelopes in this box!

The NGO is trying to make people more aware of the garbage they are accumulating, and that things like lai see envelopes can be used again and again.

Greeners Action's executive director Angus Ho Hon-wai estimates that the amount of paper used to make the lai see envelopes amounts to 16,300 trees.

Seriously?

Does he mean skinny trees or very thick mature ones?

"It's an astronomical figure," Ho says. "I've looked at some numbers and it doesn't seem like other places with Chinese people distribute as much lai see as we do."

Not only that but many people in Hong Kong like to use crisp bills too to symbolize a new start to the Lunar New Year.

Last year Greeners Action collected about 8 million lai see envelopes -- about 30 tonnes in weight -- and about half of them were still good to reuse, the other half was recycled.

The envelopes are given out to people to use again

People have until February 22 to collect their lai see envelopes and drop them off in 500 collection points around the city, including shopping malls, Jockey Club betting stations, residential estates, hospitals and banks.

We should also keep in mind that the city threw out 2,257 tonnes of waste paper everyday -- a 17.5 percent increase from 2015. Hong Kong people really need to not only be more conscious of using paper, but also the government needs to educate them on how to recycle and help make recycling paper and other items a viable business.

How do You Dry Your Hands?

How many sheets of paper towels do you use each day? Month? Year?

Some interesting trivial information today -- Hong Kong people's knowledge of environmental issues is still pathetic, as a study has found seven out of 10 residents would choose using a paper towel over an electric hand dryer.

While only 465 people were polled by business chamber JCI Lion Rock and environmental group World Green Organization, almost half of those questioned thought paper towels were better because they could be recycled which is not true.

"Paper towels cannot be recycled because they get wet, their fibres are too short, they're bleached and are contaminated once used," explained Dr William Yu Yuen-ping, WGO chief executive.

Do you mind using an electric hand dryer? Or takes too long?

This I did not know, but now I do.

The survey found 70 to 80 percent of those polled used fewer than 10 sheets of paper towel a day, one fifth used more, and at least 3 percent used more than 26 sheets daily. DAILY.

The researchers calculated that would mean those people surveyed used about 3,610 sheets of paper towel a day, or 1.3 million a year. For the entire Hong Kong, that would mean 55 million sheets of paper towel thrown into landfills daily and more than 20 billion per year, which equates to 583,321 trees a year.

Do people understand what's involved in making paper towels and how we kill so many trees just so we can wipe our hands? When I go to the washroom particularly at the office, I'm mortified when I see people using more than one paper towel to wipe their hands and then throwing it thoughtlessly into the garbage bin.

Imagine huge swathes of this forest gone to make paper towels

The government wants to decrease the amount of solid waste by 40 percent by 2022, but if people keep throwing out paper towels, how can the amount be cut down if at all?

Yu says the government needs to do more to promote public awareness of the problem and we agree. How about mandating that all offices, shopping malls and restaurants must install electric hand dryers? Or as Yu says, get people into the habit of carrying their own handkerchief?

And while we're at it, how about reminding people we don't have unlimited supplies of water that, by the way, come from China?

Hong Kong seems to have no care about running itself into the ground...

Fact of the Day: Hong Kong's Trashy Behaviour

Why is Hong Kong's waste output increasing each year and not decreasing?

Us Hong Kong people dump a lot of garbage.

Last year, an average of 14,859 tonnes of solid waste was thrown out every day, an increase of 3.8 percent from 2013. Most of it was a 10 percent increase in construction waste, according to the latest Environmental Protection Department statistics.

So the amount of municipal solid waste dumped in landfills increased 2.5 percent from an average of 9,547 tonnes per day in 2013 to 9,782 tonnes last year. This kind of waste is generated from domestic, commercial and industrial sectors, with one-third of it being food.

Most of the garbage, at one-third, is food waste

When broken down per person, per day, it's 1.35kg last year, 1.33kg in 2013, 1.32kg in 2012 and 1.27kg in 2011.

What are we throwing out? Can't some of it be recycled? And do we have to buy so much in the first place?

This is hardly helping to meet government targets of reducing waste by 20 percent by 2017, and 40 percent by 2022.

Recycling is doing poorly at a pathetic 37 percent last year, with the quantity of recyclable materials increased by 45,000 tonnes compared to 2014. While more metals are being recycled, the collection of paper dropped by 87,000 tonnes, and plastic by 144,000 tonnes.

The government really needs to subsidize recycling in order to make people think of this as a way to reduce their waste. We can always use the recycling for other things. It's not as if the city is poor -- we have the financial resources to support this industry to make it a more viable one and create jobs as well as clean up the environment.

Not everyone uses these recycling bins property...

In the meantime, green groups are calling on the government to implement the waste charging scheme as soon as possible, though they don't anticipate it being implemented until 2018 or 2019.

However, we can already envision people dumping their trash in public waste bins to avoid being charged, and this is being done already. Perhaps the waste management department does too good of a job taking away our garbage so there isn't an appreciation for how much trash we accumulate...

Quick-Change Artist

The animated version of Mona Lisa

We just got back from an entertaining evening by Ennio Marchetto: The Living Paper Cartoon at the Academy for Performing Arts.

Not knowing what to expect, we were a) intrigued b) surprised and c) weirded out when we saw a man in a black lycra suit (with fantastic legs) doing some fun renditions and lip-synching of famous pop stars and celebrities with only some cardboard costumes that stuck to his head and body.

For example, he came out as the Mona Lisa complete with picture frame, and made hilarious faces at the audience. In another artistic segment, he was Venus de Milo, wondering why she couldn't move her arms.

Marchetto as Marilyn Monroe in her halter dress

Marchetto proved himself deft at portraying such people as Cher and Dolly Parton (complete with pendulous breasts) sitting astride a donkey, and Justin Bieber and Rhianna, Madonna (with conical corset) and Stevie Wonder complete with rainbow braided locks, shades and a keyboard.

We loved Marchetto coming out as Queen Elizabeth II, giving the ubiquitous royal wave and carrying a handbag, and then immediately transformed himself into Freddie Mercury.

It was these "magic tricks" that kept audiences guessing what would be next. And he was non-stop for about an hour, doing one rendition after another, each with a slight twist.

Another favourite was the one of Celine Dion singing My Heart Will Go On from Titanic, and Marchetto comes out with a mane of blond hair and dress, that soon transforms into the giant ill-fated cruise liner and then whips out paper dolls of Rose and Jack, puts them at the bow of the ship and then throw them overboard!

Voguing as Madonna complete with conical corset

His one tribute to Hong Kong was Hero Story, the theme song from Police Story, doing some kung fu and throwing his fist through a "pile of rocks" made of paper. Nevertheless we were impressed he did lip synch the words in Cantonese.

What made Marchetto's act great were his costumes, these paper outfits that were artistically made, but also engineered to fold ingeniously to reveal new characters and items, like thermometers used in the song Fever.

This is Marchetto's fourth visit to Hong Kong, and the opening night had some loyal fans in the audience. What's interesting to note is that Marchetto is 53 and he's been doing this act -- variations of characters -- for about 25 years.

A heavy-set Dolly Parton riding a donkey...

One has to wonder what he was like growing up as a kid -- did he like dress up? He was inspired by the animation of Walt Disney, the choreography of Pina Bausch and mime performer Lindsay Kemp. Marchetto performed for many years at the Venetian Carnival and then got his big break in 1989 at the Edinburgh Fringe and has been a cult hit ever since.

So even though it's not exactly high art, it's great entertainment and makes one appreciate someone who has the guts to go it alone on stage non stop for an hour.

Ennio Marchetto: The Living Paper Cartoon

Until October 13

Drama Theatre, The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts

www.enniomarchetto.com

Picture of the Day: Paper Installation

A fantastic moving window display from Clarins completely made of paper

This evening after dinner we walked around IFC Mall in Central and we were immediately taken by this window display.

Presented by French skincare and cosmetics line Clarins, the entire window was a tropical setting completely made of paper.  Not only was this an impressive piece of paper art, but also it was hardly static.

What looked like a sun with its rays bounced up and down, and the palm tree branches rustled back and forth as well. The person near the hut looked as if he was harvesting a plant, and then a message, "Protect people and their culture" popped up periodically from the ground.

The message Clarins is sending is that the ingredients it uses in its products are organic, locally grown or from a fair trade program with the aim of preserving biodiversity.

Since the skincare line claims to use ingredients from places such as Madagascar and Vietnam, it is only in Clarins' best interests to try to ensure the sustainability of the plants they harvest.

While it's one thing to buy into the message, we were mesmerized by the artistic display.