Recycle Day @ Sai Kung Piers, 27 May – update

The community action group Friends of Sai Kung is launching a new recycling initiative next month, with an inaugural Sai Kung Recycle@Piers Day on Sunday 27 May. This follows the success of its Recycling Saturday programme in the town’s main square, which now collects up to 100kg of recyclable materials (mainly plastic) each month.
The new initiative aims to raise public awareness of the huge amount of waste, much of it recyclable, that is generated in summer by boat parties. “Just in Sai Kung, as many as 30,000 people use the public piers each weekend,” said Carol Ho, Head of Operations at Friends of Sai Kung. “The litter they produce is treated as general garbage and goes straight to landfill. Although a lot of it could be recycled, the government currently provides no recycling bins at public piers in Hong Kong.” With support from the local boat operators and cleaning staff, Friends of Sai Kung will station volunteers at each of the 10 berthing points on Sai Kung’s two public piers to sort the arriving materials as they are unloaded from boats. Waste processing firm Baguio Cleaning Services will provide recycling bins on each pier, and will transport the sorted materials to its recycling centre.

“We are very grateful to the boat operators, cleaning staff and Baguio for their support,” said Ho. “It demonstrates how conscious Sai Kung people are becoming of the need to recycle as much waste as possible. If our initial Recycle@Piers Day proves a success, maybe we will be able to turn it into a regular event just like our Recycling Saturdays.”