Jockey Club greens up the valley by recycling betting slips

How green was our Valley? Not green enough by half, with race-goers discarding millions of betting slips every year at the Happy Valley and Sha Tin racecourses.

So, to do its bit for the environment, the Jockey Club introduced slips that can be recycled. They also have a longer shelf life because the paper is not chemically treated, and they are much thinner, at a tenth of a millimetre.

Moreover, the slips are made from paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, an international non-profit organisation based in Germany, as promoting responsible and sustainable logging.

All slips passed by punters to cashiers in club betting shops will be recycled. There will also be recycling bins in all club betting shops and racecourses: these will be for all losing betting slips, slips that may have been filled in wrongly or for some reason have not been passed to a cashier and need to be disposed of.

It is estimated that the recycling will achieve a 2,178 tonne reduction in carbon emissions.

The recycled slips will be used to make toilet rolls or tissue paper.

'Nothing is wasted; everything can be recycled and used again,' the club's head of betting services, Peter Tsang, said.