do it yourself Postmagazine (January 10) featured a letter titled 'Rule Of Law'. Point No. 4 in a list of things which made the reader angry was 'The filthy state of Hong Kong's beaches'. He went on to say, 'Does the Urban Services ever clean them? It should be done daily.' Wrong, my friend. The people who made the beaches filthy in the first place should clean up after themselves. It is surely not so difficult to take your garbage home, or at least place it in the bins provided.
It is a matter of education or, if that does not work, of a fine. Nothing teaches people more quickly than on-the-spot fines littering a beach, picnic site or street. Singapore has managed to do it, why can't we? And Australia is leagues ahead. On a recent trip to Queensland's fabulous beaches, we were amazed at the cleanliness of the sand and water ... and there was not an 'Urban Services' team in sight. During a week's holiday, the people who used the beach each day were meticulous about taking everything away with them. The only thing we saw left behind was a child's sunhat, which had obviously been dropped by mistake! Clive Rigby's letter (Litter Bugbear) on the same page is right to the point: let's have some legislation to stop this blight, and let's have it enforced.
Name and address supplied human suffering I have just read your magazine (January 31 issue) and wanted to congratulate you and your staff on tackling such a complicated subject in such an in-depth way. I shall be taking the copy we have back to the United States to show my company's human resources department the sort of conditions that expats have to contend with, as this sort of informaton is just not part of their consciousness.
It will be interesting to compare these articles with those in the future - we can only hope things continue to improve through education by articles like this and the resultant pressure placed on governments to perform.
Gail Atkinson Mid-Levels young guns Imagine Hong Kong in 30 years if we are still polluting it as much as we are now. Think: smog everywhere, rubbish overflowing, people wearing gas masks - if there are any people at all. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it's close to the truth, and that is why we think the younger generation should get more involved with cleaning the environment. We saw your pollution issue on January 24 and we now have some ideas for projects we can begin working on. We have set up the Young World Organisation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to fighting for a clean, green environment. It will be run by students under the age of 17 and gives youths who want to help the environment but don't know how, a chance to join in various projects to protest against deforestation, endangered animals, and pollution.
When the adults now are dead and gone, our generation is going to be the one who have to deal with these problems. And our work's going to be much easier if we start now.
