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Residents dump three-coloured waste separation bins
ˇ§Those people know when the trucks of the recycling companies will come and they will queue up and wait. They know clearly where the trucks will be and which company will offer a better price,ˇ¨ Mr Wong said.
His 78-year-old neighbour is one of those in the queue. The elderly woman, who only gave her name as Chan, said: ˇ§Earning money from selling these things is better than getting allowances from the government because I am earning my own living.ˇ¨ She receives about $10 to $20 each time she sells something to a recycler.
She started selling recyclable materials such as old newspapers, cardboards and aluminium cans since 2003. She collected newspapers by herself and from her neighbours including Mr Wong, who used to give the waste to the cleaners before the scheme started.
Housewife Cheung Yuk-chun, who lives in Lung Hang Estate in Sha Tin, said she had started selling recyclable waste this year since recyclers came to her estate to collect materials. ˇ§Now I would put more effort into separating the waste,ˇ¨ she said, adding that she did not have the habit of segregating her trash before.
The three-coloured waste separation bin system was introduced in 1998 to encourage the recycling of paper, aluminium can and plastic bottles, which are collected in blue, yellow and brown bins respectively.
Till now, the bins are placed in over 1,400 public and private housing estates in Hong Kong , covering nearly 70 per cent of the population.
Under the scheme, estate property management companies or cleaning contractors manage the waste separation bins and the collection of recyclable materials in the housing estates.
Li Chor-keung, foreman of the cleaning contractor of Chung On Estate in Ma On Shan, said the cleaners of his company would collect materials from the bins three times a day. After that, the contracted recycling company will come and collect the materials.
The owner of Ah Pok Reuse-Recycle Company, the estateˇ¦s recycler for about two years, said her firm would sell the materials collected to other larger recycling companies such as Fook Woo Environmental Technologies Limited. The company can earn about $500 to $800 a month from the wastes recovered from Chung On Estate, said the owner, who identified herself only as Ms So.
A girl follows her grandmother to the collection spot.
