Recycling

Every day we damp a lot of domestic, industrial & agricultural wastes. Some of the materials in the rubbish will decay: this include the left-over food, fruit peelings, etc. They can be broken down into simple inorganic materials by the action of bacteria and fungi. We call this sort of pollutant biodegradable. Other kinds of rubbish will not decay, because they are made of substances which cannot be broken down into simple inorganic materials. They are called nonbiodegradable. They include plastic, polystyrene, metal, etc.

This kind of rubbish wastes a large space of the landfill site and cannot burn. But we may use another method to treat with this kind of rubbish, which is called recycling. By recycling, we can make use of used materials like paper, metal products and plastic products from the waste again. For example, we can collect and melt used glass and metals for the production of new glass bottles and new aluminum cans.

Type of rubbish can be recycle

timber products (e.g. furniture) paper metal products aluminium can plastics (e.g. tires, plastic bottles, etc)

Aim of recycling
Save resources Timber, metal and plastic are non-renewable resources. Recycling can help to reduce the using the left materials. Reduce deposal waste As part of the rubbish are taken to recycle. Thus reduce the area of landfill site use. Protect the environment As it prevent the burning of plastic in incinerator and reduce the area of landfill site use.

The fact in Hong Kong of recycling

About 1.94 million tones of waste were recovered in Hong Kong in 2001. This represented about 36% of the total waste arising in the city. The recovered wastes were either recycled locally (0.17 million tonnes1) or exported to the Mainland and other countries for recycling (1.77 million tonnes2). The major kinds of recyclable wastes recovered included paper, plastics and metal, which accounted for about 98% of the waste recovered. The remaining 2% were glass, wood, rubber tires and textile.

The fact of paper recycling

The paper recycling process starts by beating waste paper into pieces in a stirring tank to generate paper pulp. Contaminants are removed while the remaining fibers are fed into fiber refiners to produce refined fibers. The flowing refined pulp is then directed to a paper former for layer deposition. The paper layer is de-watered by a mechanical press, followed by vacuum suction and thermal drying to produce corrugated medium for paper container and paperboard.

The recycled paper produced by local recyclers confines to corrugated paper and duplex paper card for packaging. A variety of waste paper including the high value waste paper (e.g. white paper and computer printout), old corrugated cardboard, newspapers and other mixed paper, are being exported to overseas countries for recycling. About 800,000 tones of waste paper were recovered in Hong Kong. This represented about 58% of the waste paper generated (dry weight).

The fact of plastic recycling

The recycling of plastic waste is limited to clean scraps and rejects from manufacturing sources. Though domestic recovery of plastic bottles has increased significantly since the introduction of the waste separation bins in housing estates and public places, there is still limited reprocessing of post-consumer plastic such as plastic bottles and plastic bags due to many practical constraints and barriers.

Most local plastic recyclers consume only clean and homogeneous pre-consumer plastic waste collected from the industrial sector. The plastic waste recycling process starts with the sorting by resin types. The plastics are rinsed to remove contaminants. The sorted and washed waste is then crushed and mixed with colourant before melting and pelletising. The pellets produced will be sold to plastic product manufacturers as raw material.

The fact of metal recycling

Waste metals are broadly classified into two types: ferrous and non-ferrous metal. The most common ferrous metals recovered in Hong Kong are: -iron -tinplate -alloy steel scrap -other scrap Non-ferrous metals recovered include: -copper & alloys -zinc -nickel -tin -aluminium -precious metal -lead -metal ash & residues

About 803,000 tones of ferrous metal were recovered. This represented about 91% of the ferrous metal waste arising in the territory. The major kinds of ferrous metals recovered included structural steel, scrap vehicle and scrap home appliances. About 76% of the total non-ferrous metal arising was recovered. Out of the 76,800 tones recovered. The recovered metal is first classified, melt and then turn to it shape by molding.

The limiting factor of recycling

Although the environmental awareness of the general public has increased significantly in recent years, their willingness to actively participate in waste reduction still needs to be enhanced. Promoting waste avoidance on purely environmental reasons may not be sufficient. As costs for collection and disposal services are not linked directly with the quantity of wastes generated through charging, there is no financial incentive for waste producers to reduce waste.

The built environment inhibits recycling activities from the domestic waste stream. Small flat sizes restrict source separation and storage practices. Low values, high transportation cost or lack of market demand for recovered materials particularly for plastics, glass, paper, metal, textiles, tires and organic materials. The predominance of small and medium recovery and recycling enterprises discourages investments in waste recovery technologies.

On Government level,
Provide more Waste Separation Bins at each buildings, plazas, leisure and cultural venues, schools, country parks, offices & factories. Encourages materials re-use, recovery and recycling to help achieve waste reduction. Allocating suitable land solely for recycling purpose at affordable rent is a major measure for supporting the waste recycling industry. As the profit of waste recovery and recycling is often marginal, leasing land through open tendering exclusively to waste recyclers could lower their operation cost. This would help promote the local recycling activity in Hong Kong.

Organise more activities which are promoting the recycling and reusing of useful rubbish. Set up a recycling fund scheme for the recycling factories, and for organising recycling activities.

On personal level,
Collect & classify the rubbish like aluminium can and paper which can be recycle or reuse. Put these kind of rubbish into the Waste Separation Bins. Use both side of paper. Reduce the using of products made by plastic (e.g. plastic bag or bottle), always reuse and put into the Waste Separation Bins.

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