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Green Message in a Bottle

Glass recycling finally gets going in Hong Kong

Reporters: Carmen Shih and Yvonne Yeung

Blue is for paper, yellow is for metals and brown is for plastics. Now there is a new colour for recycling bins – light green for glass bottles.

The new bins have been specially designed to receive empty condiment and drinks bottles as well as jam jars and other glass objects.

The first glass bins were introduced in January and they can be found alongside existing three-colour waste separation bins in six selected public rental housing estates in East Kowloon. They are part of a 12-month pilot programme to separate and recycle glass bottles collected from housing estates organised by the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) and the Housing Authority.

According to Alain Lam Kwok-lun, principal environmental protection officer of the EPD, the scheme is a good start for glass recycling in Hong Kong. “It would be best if glass could be locally produced, locally treated and locally used,” says Lam.

Although aluminium cans, paper and plastic bottles have been widely collected and recycled, there has been little interest in recycling glass in Hong Kong. This is because of the absence of a local glass manufacturing industry and the lack of a market for the used glass bottles.

In order to create a market and reliable outlet for recycled glass, the government funded the Hong Kong Polytechnic University to develop technology to produce eco-bricks from waste glass.

Eco-bricks are mainly made of fly ash, glass sand and recycled crushed stones. The glass sand replaces natural river sand as one of the raw materials. By using waste as a raw material, energy consumption can be reduced. The government’s goal is to reduce the territory’s energy consumption by 30 per cent.

And it is not just energy consumption that is a problem. Hong Kong’s landfills are filling up fast. Yet every day, the territory generates around 600 tonnes of waste glass bottles. In 2009, glass bottles accounted for four per cent of total solid waste. So the government needs to find ways to reduce the amount dumped into landfills.

The hope is to increase the recovery rate of all waste from 49 per cent to 55 per cent by 2015.

“After all, (waste reduction) is a subtraction,” Lam says, explaining why the government should take a leading role in expanding the market for waste glass.

An example is the government’s requirement that contractors use 100 per cent eco-bricks to win tenders for official projects. Eco-bricks have been used in various projects by the Highways Department, the Housing Authority, the EPD and local tertiary education institutions. “We have to encourage people to use or to buy eco-bricks at extra cost,” says Lam.

At present, there are two construction material companies producing eco-bricks and blocks. Besides eco-bricks production, waste glass bottles can also be washed and reused. Some hardware stores reuse them to hold solvents, while some condiment and sauce stores use them as containers for their products.

Waste glass bottles, which are usually seen as rubbish, can also be transformed and regenerated into pieces of artwork. In January this year, Green Glass Green, an initiative started by The Hong Kong Dumper Truck Driver Association, organised an exhibition at Oasis in Central, showing 47 pieces of glass artwork created by local secondary school students.

Through the Eyes of Hong Kong’s Mainland Students

Reporters: Piano Ho, Phyllis Lee, To Ting, Vinky Wong

We may study in the same lecture rooms, dine in the same canteens, and even sleep in the same hostel rooms. But many of us still have misunderstandings about, or more precisely, no understanding of mainland students in Hong Kong’s universities.

The total number of mainland undergraduates in Hong Kong’s eight higher education institutes has more than tripled from 1,284 in 2004 -2005 to 4,562 in 2009 – 2010.

Click here to see distribution of mainland students in Hong Kong

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Although local students tend to think of mainland students as one homogenous group, the group itself is highly diverse. As they come from different backgrounds and have different financial means, mainland students’ experience of university life in Hong Kong can be very different.

Varsity takes a look at the stories of two mainland undergraduates.

Feifei is currently studying Accounting at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She came to Hong Kong from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, in 2008. With the generous support of her parents, she not experienced any financial stress in her day to day living and leisure activities.

Feifei seldom cooks in her hostel. “When I have free time, I will go out and shop and find whatever to eat,” she says. Her favourite leisure activity is to shopping with her friends on weekends.

In her hostel room, she shows Varsity some of the things she bought on her shopping expeditions. There is a new netbook and iPad. She remarks that she has bought similar items.  There is also a pricey handbag her mother bought for her, but which lies unused in her wardrobe.

Feifei’s life is Hong Kong is very different from that of Yinyun who came from Guangxi in 2008 and is now studying Economics in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Yinyun uses an old laptop computer handed down from her father. She says she has used it for around five or six years.

For Yinyun, Hong Kong is an expensive city. She remembers that when she first arrived here, she was shocked when she saw the prices on the canteen menus on campus. “I used to joke and sigh that I would rather starve to death,” she says.

She said that although mainland students, commonly referred to as neidisheng or NDS may give local students the impression that they form a closed circle, mainland students themselves are a diverse group. Yinyun says it is easier for NDS with fluent Cantonese, for example those from Guangdong, to integrate with locals better.

But apart from language barrier, Yinyun says economic factors are increasingly leading to the differentiation between mainland students.

“In many aspects, such as entertainment and food consumption, mainland students from rich families share more common interests and hobbies with the locals,” she says. She adds that students from rich families were less affected by the culture shock NDS experience when they are confronted with Hong Kong society.

Paradise Lost in North Point: Kai Yuen Street

Reporters: Katherine Chan, Samuel Chan, Edith Liu, Beverly Yau



Before bulldozers moved in to demolish the tong lau or Chinese tenement buildings built in the post-war period in Wing Lee Street and Lee Tung Street, the affected residents put up a fight against redevelopment. Their cause won the sympathy of many Hong Kongers.

This is not the case for Kai Yuen Street in North Point. Redevelopment is now so widespread that perhaps the public and the media have lost interest.

Yet this once quiet and low-key street has a rich history.

The Kai Yuen Street neighbourhood was until recently a peaceful oasis..It is common to see chauffeurs smoking quietly next to parked Porsches and foreign domestic helpers pushing trolleys full of groceries. The street has always been populated with the rich and famous who wish to stay low-profile. Writer Eileen Chang and painter Zhang Da-qian were among those who fled China and found some peace living there.

The street was named after a magnificent mansion at the knoll. The mansion, Kai Yuen, was home for the family of Chan Wai-chow until it was demolished in the late 1960s. Chan Wai-chow was the brother of Chen Jitang who governed Guangdong province after the Kuomingtang’s Northern Expedition from 1929 to 1936. Chan built Kai Yuen 1938 after his brother’s downfall.

The apartments are known for their high ceilings and sky gardens. The neighbourhood is friendly and the security is good.

The steep and narrow road leading up to Bedford Garden segregates the street from the hustle and bustle of the main roads in North Point. Its inhabitants speak highly for the street’s quietness.

However, construction noise has disturbed the tranquillity of Kai Yuen Street since New World Development acquired the eastern part of the street, from Bedford Garden to Full Wealth Garden at the end of the street, in recent years.

Still, most of the residents Varsity spoke to believe it is worth putting up with the dust and noise for a good apartment in Kai Yuen Street.

The construction work is now flattening low-rise blocks and replacing them with several 30-storey buildings. The residents of lower Kai Yuen Street have all moved away.

Some residents of upper Kai Yuen Street do not want to entertain the idea of the same happening to the flats in their part of the street. They do not want to move. “You cannot find the apartments here anywhere else in Hong Kong,” one of the residents said.

To outsiders, Kai Yuen Street may be just another street being redeveloped. For the residents, the peace may have been disturbed, but street is still a haven of tranquillity for now.

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Varsity CUHK
Varsity is an award-winning magazine created for the tertiary students and faculty of Hong Kong. It is written, edited and designed by students in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Contact us: varsity@cuhk.edu.hk