As much as 95 per cent of our daily power use is unnecessary, as winners of a contest to reduce electricity consumption show. The winning family of four paid just HK$100 for power during the two-month competition.
A total of 7,705 families competed this year in the contest, which was organised by the Organic Resource Centre of Baptist University.
May Mok Mei-lai, who works as a domestic helper, and her family were the champions in both the electricity and emission reduction categories. They showed it was possible to use only about 5 per cent of the power consumed by the average household.
She wept as she recalled teaching her sons the need for environmental responsibility, breaking down before finishing her speech. 'I began learning about things such as reusable shopping bags and carbon emissions only a year ago when I received training courses from the sponsor. Before that, I knew nothing about these things.' She could not recall the family's pre-contest electricity expenses.
Her methods include going to bed early, cutting the use of electrical appliances and not using conventional air conditioning.
Queenie Yip Tsui-pik and her husband recorded using 90 per cent less electricity than the average household. She was one of the nine first runner-ups. She said she and her husband would sometimes walk 50 minutes to their workplace at Kowloon Tong from their Cheung Sha Wan flat to avoid taking transport. She also stopped using some of the installed light bulbs and would normally leave the air conditioner off.