Recycling

Recycling is important in conservation. It reduces the amount of wastes, conserving natural resources and reducing pollution problems. Some of the solid wastes can be recycled. They can be classified under the categories of reusable materials and recyclable materials. Reusable materials such as glass bottles can be sold to relevant manufacturers. Recyclable materials include paper, metals, and certain types of plastics, tyres and other valuable materials. They are separated and then sold as raw materials for recycling. Today, recycling of materials is enhanced through government policies, environmental protection campaigns and consumer awareness. These encourage the establishment of recycling industries all over the world.

Recycling of waste materials helps to alleviate solid waste pollution to the environment. Recycling of waste is important in a number of ways. Firstly it reduces the rate of depletion of natural resources. It also saves energy used in mining and processing of natural resources. Further, air pollution brought about by incineration, mining and processing of natural resources can also be reduced. It also reduces the need for landfill sites. It also save start-up costs and operation costs for waste treatment. It also creates more jobs other than burying or burning wastes for the community. People will also be educated through the practice of recycling about the importance of proper waste disposal, thrifty use of natural resources and environmental protection. However, recycling also face many problems, such as the high costs involved in collection and separation of waste materials.

In Hong Kong there is a substantial waste recovery industry. The waste materials recovered are mainly for export. They are confined to those with commercial values, including waste paper, aluminum cans and other forms of metals. For recycling of paper, the recovered waste paper was either recycled or re-processed locally, or exported to Mainland China and other countries for recycling in the local waste paper recycling industry. The recycled paper produced by local recyclers was confined to those materials used for packaging. For recycling of metals, recycling of metallic wastes has been carried out in Hong Kong for several decades. The industry has been developed from individual wastes collection to large-scale collection and recycling industry. Metal wastes are broadly classified into ferrous metals and non-ferrous metals. The wastes collected are separated into different types of metals before sales to local and overseas companies for recycling. For recycling of plastics, it is confined to clean and homogeneous scraps rejected from manufacturing sources. There is very limited re-processing of post-consumer plastics such as plastic bottles and plastic bags due to the complicated processing procedures. Therefore only a small proportion of the plastic wastes were recovered. International coding system of plastics has been adopted for the effective means for identification of different types of plastic materials. This facilitates separation and treatments of plastics wastes.

The Hong Kong government has various channels promoting recycling. They establish a Waste Reduction Committee, which comprises business communities, environmental protection organizations, academics and environmental experts. Its responsibility is to work out measures for production in Hong Kong. The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and the Leisure and Cultural Services Department have provided recycling bins for plastic bottles, aluminum cans and waste paper in public areas. The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department have also provided recycling bins for aluminum cans, plastic bottles and BBQ forks in major recreational sites in country parks. The government also supports the local waste recycling industry by allocating suitable sites solely for recycling purposes at affordable rents.

However, thee are constraints limiting the extent of waste recovery and recycling activities in Hong Kong. The public awareness of the importance of environmental protection is still relatively low. The promotion of reduction in waste production is insufficient. The costs for waste collection and disposal services are relatively high, and are not relevant to quantities of wastes collected. Small flat sizes in Hong Kong restrict waste separation and storage. The low prices and lack of market demands of some recovered materials limit the development of the recycling industries. The predominance of relatively small-scale recycling enterprises discourages investments on advanced waste recovery technology.