Kathy Poon 6S 28

9 Discuss on the recycling of waste e.g. paper and aluminium.

With an increasing rate of population growth, the conservation and management of natural resources are becoming more and more important. So people should be mobilized to participate in conservation activities. The most common ways is recycling of wastes e.g. paper and aluminium.

It can reduce the pressure of huge amounts of solid wastes, conserving natural resources and reduce the pollution problems. It can be divided to two dimensions: recovery and utilization. Recovery refers to the collection of waste materials that can be reused. Utilization refers to the processing of diverted waste into new and useful materials and products.

Many of the solid wastes can be recycled, which are reusable materials and recyclable materials. The reusable materials such as glass bottles can be sold to relevant manufacturers. The recyclable materials include paper, metals, and different types of plastics, tyres and other valuable materials.

Recycling of wastes has many benefits. It helps to alleviate solid waste pollution to the environment. Firstly, it can reduce the rate of depletion of natural resources and save the energy used in mining and processing of natural resources. Also, it reduces air pollution caused by incineration, mining and processing of natural resources and lessens the needs for landfill sites. Thirdly, it saves the start-up costs and operation costs for waste treatment is also one of the benefits. Lastly, it can also benefits us by creating more jobs other than burying or burning wastes and educating people through, the practice of recycling, about the importance of proper waste disposal, thrifty use of natural resources and environmental protection.

However, the major problem in recycling industry is the high costs involved in collection and separation of waste materials. The recycling rates of various materials have grown rapidly on a global scale as its benefits to the environment.

Hong Kong has a substantial waste recovery industry. The waste materials recovered are mainly for export. Consequently, they are confined to those with high commercial values, including waste paper, aluminium cans and other forms of metals. According to the environment protection department, there are abut 300 active waste collectors and 50 waste recyclers in Hong Kong.

Recycling paper is the most common type. 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, there were about 120 private waste paper collectors and 2 paper recyclers in operation. The recycled paper produced by local recyclers was confined to those materials used for packaging.

The recycling industry of metals has been developed from individual waste collectors to large-scale collection and recycling industry. Metal wastes are broadly classified into ferrous metals (such as cast iron and alloy steel scrap) and non-ferrous metals (such as aluminium, copper, lead and tin).

The recycling of plastic wastes in Hong Kong is confined mainly 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 waste was recovered. In order to facilitate the activities of plastic recovery and recycling, the internationally recognized coding system of plastics has been adopted. This coding system provides an effective means for identifying different wastes. The coding system acts as a tool to educate the community and as a starting point for enhancement of the plastic recycling industry in Hong Kong.

I think recycling is really a good process that can help us to save the resources. Nowadays, the population grows larger and larger. If we do nothing, more and more waste will be produced that we may not have sufficient place to place them one day. So, we better act now. Let’s do something that make sure we can still have a comfortable life in the future.