Harold Yip Man-ki shares his journey in the recycling industry.
By Ken Nguyen
“I started my recycling career in 2009 but waited almost 10 years to set up Mil Mill because back then, running a pulp mill was not profitable,” says Harold Yip Man-ki.
Mil Mil is the first and only drink cartons recycler in Hong Kong, converting used beverage boxes and other paper wastes into pulp, which is the main material for paper making.
The company can handle up to about 50 tonnes of drink cartons daily, which is equivalent to nearly two million boxes.
In 2009, Yip founded Secure Information Disposal Services Limited (SSID), which is a confidential documents destruction and professional wastes consulting company, targeting businesses, accounting firms, law firms, universities and many others.
A year later, Yip wondered whether there were better ways to deal with paper wastes in Hong Kong.
“In Hong Kong, people simply collect wastes and export that to other places, mainly to Mainland China. It is nothing more but a simple trading business,” he says, noting that this is ineffective.
And from Hong Kong landfill statistics, he found that there were more than 2,000 tonnes of paper wastes being discarded every day. He wanted to make a change.
“Paper recycling is very simple. You don’t put paper in a rubbish bin but a recycling bin. Why are there still many people not doing it?” he adds.
However, the founder at first believed that a paper mill was not feasible in Hong Kong due to limited space and infrastructure.
“To prepare for the setting up of Mil Mill in 2019, I applied for recycling fund to raise budgets. It took me more than one year to find an appropriate site and another nine months to construct the whole plant”, Yip says.
In 2015, the government introduced a HK$1 billion Recycling Fund to support recycling businesses with the hope to recover 55 per cent of municipal waste to achieve a goal of “zero-landfill” by 2035.
The pulp processed by Mil Mill is transported mainly to Mainland China as materials for the manufacture of different paper products such as tissue, A4 paper and packaging.
The founder highlights the importance of networking with different enterprises and institutions to form collection points of paper wastes and sources for raw materials.
“The challenge with Mil Mill is that its model has two ends. Even if we collect sufficient amounts of waste, it would be useless if there are no places to send the pulp to”, Yip says.
Efforts of Mil Mill in the past years have been recognized by many institutions. The company has partnered with most shopping centers and residential estates in Hong Kong to build up over 600 collection points of paper wastes in 2024.
But the way to its success today was not easy. The COVID-19 broke out shortly after Mil Mill’s opening.
“We just built the factory and held a big opening ceremony, and then nothing, no materials coming in, no institutional investments. If I failed, I would have lost all the money and efforts”, Yip recalls.
“I was very worried about Mil Mill being shut down”, the 60-year-old man says.
The situation changed in 2020 when Mil Mill received support from many newly elected young district councilors, who helped set up collection points in their office and let the community know more about the recycling mission of Mil Mill.
“We could then expand the network with more enterprises and collect wastes from them. Gradually, our brand image became more popular that even some big corporations wanted to work with us”, Yip says.
Subsidies from the government during the pandemic and support from green groups helped the factory survive difficult times.
“We got a lot of support and were very lucky to overcome difficulties”, says the founder.
The biggest challenge for Mil Mill came late in 2022 when the government-backed landlord, the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, refused to renew its lease and forced the company to leave Yuen Long.
“Right after COVID-19, the landlord kicked us out. We tried very hard and finally relocated to a new site in Fanling”, Yip says.
Moving to a new location, the company can only keep 20 per cent of its old facilities and has to install new machines.
“Capacity of the electricity supply is limited, so we have to find smaller and more energy-efficient machines”, the founder says.
Luckily, the plant could still manage to process relatively the same volume of wastes as the old site.
Having been through so many ups and downs, Yip’s passion in recycling wastes is undeterred.
“I want everyone to know that some kinds of paper wastes like milk cartons, ketchup cans and coffee cups are not rubbish and they can be recycled for a better purpose”, he says.
Yip now is no longer involved in day-to-day operations of the factory, though he is the largest shareholder.
But his journey with recycling continues.
“I am working in a new company that handles agricultural wastes to produce board fabrication for furnishing. I can not disclose much. Let’s wait for the official announcement,” Yip says.
Edited by Jenny Lam
Sub-edited by Carrie Lock
