Hong Kong’s “Go Green” Efforts

Amanda Pinto
IND-210-02-09SP
Hong Kong Research Paper
January 21, 2009

The citizens of Hong Kong have realized that they have two major reasons to adopt a greener lifestyle. First, the people living in Hong Kong are among the heaviest polluters, per head, on the planet. Secondly, all of the citizens directly suffer from the various pollutants that the city generates (1). In 2007, Hong Kong produced over 13,900 tons of solid waste each day. It is predicted that the three existing landfills will be fully occupied in the next few years, which makes waste reduction an increasingly important issue to their society.

Table 1. Quantities of Solid Waste Disposed of at Landfills in 1991-2007

Table 2. Types of Solid Waste Disposed of at Landfills in 2007
Recently, Hong Kong has been making an effort to reduce the city’s waste and “Go Green”. One of the groups created to inform people about how to go green is Green Power. Green Power encourages people to practice waste reduction in their daily lives and make it a sustainable habit. They have also launched a campaign to urge the public to celebrate festivals in a less wasteful way.
The International Finance Center is one of the most well known buildings in Hong Kong has dual flush toilets (fig.1). These dual flush toilets have two different buttons, one that uses 0.8 and the other that uses 1.6 gallons of water, depending on the flush. This innovation can reduce water usage by up to 67% compared with the traditional toilet, which uses 2.9 gallons in a single flush (3).



Figure 1. Example of the dual flush toilet, which depicts the button that allows you to select how much water the toilet uses when flushed.

Many of the restaurants and other public bathrooms have use hand driers instead of paper towels, which significantly reduces waste and reduces the amount of trees used to make the paper towels. Millions of trees are cut down a year in the production of paper towels. The Earth Threat dot org blog states that 544,000 trees would be saved by replacing a 70-sheet roll of virgin fiber paper towels with electric hand driers.
The busses, trams, and taxis in Hong Kong are making an effort to go green as well. On the side of the taxis and busses, signs are posted informing patrons of the company’s efforts towards being “Green” and being more environmentally friendly. The sign that was seen on one of the busses states “Please excuse us for not letting you board the bus yet as we would like to keep the engine off until the next departure (fig.2).” Efforts like this will help to lower the CO2 admissions into the air due to car exhaust.



Figure 2. The sign seen on the side of the taxi’s and the ones that were seen on the side of some of the busses.

There has been a great effort in Hong Kong’s subway system, the MTR, to go green. There are signs informing travelers that certain escalators will be shut off during the non-peak hours of the day (fig. 3). This would save a considerable amount of energy by not using about one fourth of the escalators during non-peak hours.


Figure 3. The sign found in the subway telling patrons that during peak hours certain escalators would be turned off to conserve energy. Also, the sign that denoted the escalators that were not in use during these hours.

More recycling bins have been placed thorough out the MTR. Giving people the opportunity and proper receptacles to recycle their trash increases the chances that people will recycle, especially in such a public place where people are constantly on the move between work, home, school etc., most of them have a Coke can, water bottle, or the daily newspaper in hand. So when cans are empty, instead of being tempted to ditch it in the trash, they will have the proper bins to dispose the can in.


Figure 4. One of the recycle signs seen in the MTR. A multi-recycling bin for paper, plastic, and aluminum. A recycling bin in the MTR that encourages recycling paper.

Organic and “green” stores have been added to the array of convenience stores, clothing shops, and fast food chains in the MTR station. Eating organic foods has become a new trend and part of the go green effort. The benefit of eating organic food is that it is not treated with pesticides, which eliminates the chemicals that can be found on food that is treated with them. Two of the “green” stores that were seen in the MTR Station were Organic Land and Green Life (fig.5). These stores offer foods that are made from all-organic ingredients and do not use some of the unhealthy preservatives and fats that many of our foods are made with today.


Figure 5. Two of the organic food stores found in the MTR station.

Also, on the subway there was an advertisement for The Green Walkers (fig.6), which is supported by the Green Power organization. This organization was founded in 1988 by a group of dedicated volunteers who were concerned about local environmental problems. Environmental education is their foremost priority and they “believe that education is the ultimate means of transforming our thinking and behavior.” (2)


Figure 6. The poster for Green Walkers in the MTR.

Some of their biggest works in the past year have been an Overseas Butterfly Watching Tour, Tree Workshops to educate people on conservation of trees, River Workshops to teach teachers and students about the quality monitoring methods and deepened their understanding of Kam Tin River, and waste reduction and recycling seminars to inform people about how much waste Hong Kong produces a year and how they can help to reduce it.
Even the local colleges support going green efforts. One of the local colleges had recycling receptacles that were equipt to recycle paper, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, laser printer cartridges, and inkjet cartridges. These recycle receptacles were shaped like large flowers and each of the petals served as the recycling bin for each of the different recyclable materials and it had the logo “Better Environment Endeavor” on the front of it. Having the recycling areas for ink cartridges is a great idea because colleges and office buildings are among the highest users of printers and printer ink, so having a proper place to properly dispose of them is great. These bins were distributed throughout the main areas of the campus, which is pictured below:

Figure 7. The multi-compartment recycling bin at a local college.

In Hong Kong, bamboo scaffolding is used for all of their building projects (fig.8). Although it is slightly dangerous to construct, bamboo is very environmentally friendly. By using bamboo as scaffolding material to fix and build buildings people may start to consider using it a building material as well. Bamboo is the fastest growing woody plant in the world, therefore making it the perfect building material because it is such a renewable source. Unlike trees, which take nearly a decade before they can be cut down and used as wood, bamboo grows up to 2 inches an hour. The one stipulation for this growing material is that it depends greatly on local soil and climate conditions to grow the actual bamboo (4).


Figure 8. Pictures of the bamboo being used to make scaffolding.

The Going Green In Hong Kong website offers a 72-page guidebook with green solutions on how to lighten Hong Kong’s carbon footprint and how to decrease the toxicity around in the city. The booklet consists of information on how to easily access a sustainable lifestyle and a greener and healthier life in Hong Kong, and it is printed on 100% recyclable paper (1)!
In 1998, the Government unveiled the Waste Reduction Framework Plan (WRFP), which sets out the various initiatives for waste reduction (fig. 9). The progress of the plan was reviewed in 2001, and they saw that although they had made some progress in the overall waste recovery rate, but there was still room for improvement in different aspects of waste reduction and domestic waste recovery. The review recommended a series of measures to facilitate domestic waste separation and recovery in Hong Kong. The review set the following targets: (I) to raise the overall MSW waste recovery rate from 34% to 36% in 2004 and 40% in 2007; and (II) to raise the domestic waste recovery rate from 8% to 14% in 2004 and 20% in 2007. The construction industry is also a major target and the aim is to reduce construction and demolition waste going to landfills by 25 per cent between 1999 and 2004 (5). In May 2007, the EPD announced a proposal on an environmental levy on plastic shopping bags to reduce their indiscriminate use.

Figure 9. Advertisements from the Environmental Protection Department.

Individuals can reduce their waste by buying items with less packaging, using reusable bags for shopping, and separating waste paper, metals and plastics from our daily waste for recycling. Businesses can refer to the Hong Kong Awards for Environmental Excellence, which encourages the private sector to organize their own waste reduction activities. The EPD also offers industry-specific information on waste reduction and outlets for recyclable materials. Factories, trades, farmers and others can refer to the EPD website for information on the legal requirements for disposing of waste.
Additionally, the EPD launched a territory-wide Program on Source Separation of Domestic Waste in January 2005 which encourages housing estates/buildings to set up waste separation facilities on building floors and broaden the types of recyclables to be recovered, to increase domestic waste recovery and reduce waste requiring disposal (5).



References
(1) www.goinggreenhk.com/
(2) www.greenpower.org.hk
(3) Dual flush toilets www.treehugger.com/files/2005/03/dual_flush_toil_1.php
(4) Bamboo scaffolding – American Bamboo Society www.americanbamboo.org/GeneralInfo.html
(5) Environmental Protection Department