Hong Kong's Environmentally Friendly Culture

One thing I was really impressed by Hong Kong during my trip was their recycling culture. Placing recycling bins around may be a superficial method of portraying their commitment to saving the environment but I did not just see that in HK. What I felt was an entire culture that supported recycling and reduction of waste.

Even within the hotel, recycling was promoted by placing little recycling bins below the general waste bin! The design of the bins is so unique that I couldn't resist taking a picture of them! They have a really cute shape and even stack up so as to take up less space! You can see in the second pictures below that they are really small and only take up a tiny corner of under the sink! This incorporation of recycling bins not only showed the emphasis HK has on recycling, but also acted as a quirky decorative addition to the hotel room!

Recycling bins in my hotel room

Which is below the sink

My mum and I shopped A LOT this trip. The picture below was just our stash from the first day of the shopping spree.

Shopping bags from the first day of shopping

I was completely exhausted just after half a day of shopping. I knocked out once we returned to the hotel at around 4pm on the first day. We only alighted at around 11am! We reached the hotel around 12pm so we only shopped for 3-4 hours. I didn't know that shopping would render me this tired.

Me all tired out from the shopping

But I digress. The point is that we walked around a lot of different shops, from cheap to middle range budget shops and one thing that stuck me was most of these shops would ask if we needed a bag for our purchases. Some wouldn't even give a bag if none were requested and others would only provide a bag for a fee. This assumption that shoppers might not need a bag, or perhaps even to the extent of assuming that shoppers generally do not need a bag to carry their purchases was quite a refreshing experience. Needless to say, it also promotes recycling since majority of the shoppers would already have bags to contain their purchases!

Initially, I had wanted to show the collection of all the purchases we made throughout the trip by displaying all the plastic bags like the first picture I posted, BUT, I felt really bad for "collecting" so many plastic bags on the first day that I unpacked the loot in the evening and folded the bags so that we could reuse them the next day. The following days we spent in HK, we recycled the plastic bags we got on the first day so that we didn't need any more new ones. I think we only took one more plastic bag for all our purchases. Plus one for being a good global citizen!

I later found out that HK seldom gives out plastic bags, unless it was for clothes. Even when shopping for clothes. It was not uncommon to see shoppers pulling small to medium sized luggages to carry their purchases. It is quite a smart move to bring along luggages to shop since the en masse of all the items bought is really heavy! I experienced that feeling every single day of the trip! At the end of all the shopping, my arms would be hurting from carrying our purchases around the whole day! Perhaps the next time when I go to HK to shop, I'd bring along a smaller luggage to pull along while I shop so that I would have an easier time carrying everything.

In every building, it is not uncommon to see recycling bins sitting together beside where a general waste bin would be. It isn't just the hotels and the large shopping malls that have these bins, almost every building I went to had at least one of these recycling bins lying around. These bins have greatly increased the convenience of recycling and hence added to this culture of recycling.

Recycling bins at the airport

I was rather impressed that Hong Kong's science centre devotes an entire section of the place to conservation of the environment called the "Jockey Club Environmental Conservation Gallery". That wasn't all, different environmentally friendly tips and information were littered throughout the entire building. I felt that this was a great way to educate right at the start from when citizens are young so that they would grow up with the awareness of the importance of recycling.

If that is not enough reason to believe in HK's sincerity in committing to saving the environment, i have one last piece of evidence to prove it. When I got back to Singapore, I was looking up on information about HK when I saw something that really touched me. At the bottom of the tourism promotion website there was a small label to remind visitors to "consider the environmental before printing the page". Whats the reason why I was so impressed? Firstly, the tourism page was fully colored so in placing this label, it could potentially save the use of A LOT of ink! Secondly, I have never seen any website before this that thought of the environment impact a website could create due to its colors! Honestly, I was really impressed and touched! Do check out the website for yourselves! I've linked the caption of the screenshot to the website I got it from.

Screenshot Credit

I found out afterwards during a conversation with my mum's friend who lives in HK that the government had imposed a fee on trash bags with the rational of using that as a payment for the collection of trash. Indirectly, this has increased the incentive for recycling items at home as you now save money by not throwing away too much trash. This forced recycling has resulted in a positive impact in the conservation of resources. I guess this is probably because recycling is a habit that can be inculcated? If that's the case, it certainly is good news for countries who have only just embarked on their journey in environmental sustainability!

All pictures were taken by my Xperia Z phone.