A green group has launched Hong Kong's first recycling plan for unwanted compact discs, as CD use increases and landfill space shrinks.
The plan organised by Friends of the Earth involves more than 200 housing estates, tertiary institutions and secondary schools, and aims to divert unwanted discs from landfills to recyclers.
The programme is in response to the soaring use of CDs, as CD-Rom burners become commonplace and sales of cheap products such as video CDs soar.
Based on interviews with 438 households, the group estimates there are at least 280 million discs in the city's homes, of which 80 million get little or no use.
'If we piled up the 80 million idle CDs we would have about 259 stacks - the same height as the International Finance Centre [415 metres],' Friends of the Earth assistant director Edwin Lau Che-feng said.
The group has lined up a company to collect the CDs, which will be shredded and taken to a recycling plant in Dongguan.