bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

SCMP Reporter

You have to be bold, polite and sincere when you ask people to give you mooncake boxes for recycling, says Jessica Leung Yiu-ting, last year's champion of a mooncake box collection programme.

The programme was organised by local green group Friends of the Earth (FoE).

A total of 120,000 mooncake boxes were collected.

The total volume was equivalent to four Olympic swimming pools.

Pui Tak Canossian College - Jessica's school - collected more than 4,000 boxes, the highest number gathered by a group last year.

Meanwhile, Jessica's 320 boxes topped the individual collections.

She went from door to door in her housing estate, asking her neighbours to hand over their mooncake boxes so that they could be recycled.

The collection programme will continue with this year's Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls this Sunday.

Jessica encourages  students to join the programme. It is not difficult to help protect the environment and reduce waste, she said.

She said public housing estates are good places for collecting mooncake boxes.

'Hong Kong has a lot of public housing estates and it is easy to collect mooncake boxes there,' Jessica said.

And when you ask strangers to give you the boxes, the most important thing is to be polite and sincere, and not  be afraid.

But  you may have to deal with some rude people, too, she said. And you have to be prepared for it.

Jessica's schoolmate Nicco So Ching-han said she was once insulted by a  mahjong player when she asked for a mooncake box.

'I felt a bit frustrated at the time. But I persisted because it [recycling mooncake boxes] was something good.

'I also met quite a lot of people who encouraged me and that made me very happy,' Nicco said.

She suggests that participants ask their families and friends to help at the beginning.

This year's collection programme will be held from Thursday until October 9 in various parts of Hong Kong.

Organisers hope it will be more successful than last year.

For more information, visit www.foe.org.hk



Collect mooncake boxes, save the Earth