Don’t throw out your New Year tangerine trees, says Hong Kong green group
The Environmental Association bemoans the fact that about 40,000 tangerine trees get dumped in the city’s overflowing landfills, urges buyers to cultivate them at home instead
A conservation group is calling on the public to ponder the environmental impact of some 40,000 tangerine trees they purchase and then throw out every Lunar New Year, most of them destined for the city’s overflowing landfills.
Once again about 1,400 tonnes of “lucky” tangerine trees are expected to be disposed of at the end of this holiday season, roughly the same as last year, according to the Tai Po-based Environmental Association.
READ MORE: How orchids and tangerine trees are an enduring tradition of Lunar New Year
Association chief executive Dr Yau Wing-kwong said the lack of any mandatory waste charging gave Hongkongers no incentive to keep the trees at home. A lack of awareness of how these plants could be recycled and regrown as easily as any potted plant did not help either.
“We should respect all life forms. Throwing them out after just a couple of weeks is wasteful and adds more pressure to our landfills,” said Yau, adding that the weight of disposed trees every year was equivalent to about 60 double-decker buses.
He hopes a six-year-old tangerine tree recultivating programme at the Fung Yuen Butterfly Reserve, which the association runs, can set an example for a city which recycles just a little over 2.5 per cent of all tangerine trees on the market.
Since 2010, the group has collected about 4,000 trees, mainly from shopping malls, and replanted them on the hills of the Tai Po reserve or given them to organisations willing to take them such as the Hong Chi Association.