Recycling message is still not getting through to a lot of people
It is very discouraging to find out that just 40 per cent of the items in a four-in-one recycling bin are actually recyclable. As a person who adopts the habit of sorting recycling materials, this news really annoyed me. The article said 16 per cent of the items in the bins were just garbage. I believe not all of these items were mistakenly disposed of in the recycling bin. Some ill-mannered citizens or tourists evidently neglected the significance of sorting recyclables from rubbish.
Their selfish acts led to the contamination of other possibly recyclable items, sending every item in the bin to the landfill. Their irresponsible thinking just killed the thoughtfulness of the others.
Even when the municipal waste-charging policy takes effect, such incidents will still continue, unless thorough public education is undertaken.
Granted, practising a new habit is hard, not to mention implanting an environmentally-friendly mindset. The government, as the biggest authority of Hong Kong, should sound frequent warnings about how urgent the waste problem is. When citizen are well-informed about the waste crisis, I will become more concerned about recycling, and so show more civic sense when disposing of waste.
Cathleen Shek, Tseung Kwan O