綠「識」回收 - Green Recycling

In this case study, we will focus on 4 main aspects;

• Current recycling facilities provided in Hong Kong ( Reverse Vending Machine ,  GREEN@COMMUNITYs ,  Kerbside Recycling Bins  &  Food Waste Collection Bins )
•  Evaluation  of the current recycling system
• Citizen's awareness
•  Suggestions  on  mapping the future  

Through this case study, we will explore the following sub-questions;

• Is the amount of the said recycling facilities adequate?
• Could these recycling facilities be easily reached?
• How would accessibility affect citizens' recycling habits?
• How could the recycling system be improved?

In this case study, we will analyse the recycling facilities in Hong Kong and Choi Hung sub-district as our main focus for a more in-depth research.

In our study area, there are only 3 RVMs in total despite having a large number of domestic households (80,374), leading to a ratio of 1 RVM : 26,791 households which is even higher than the average. Only estates who have RVMs installed can enjoy a high proximity with it. The close distance would increase the willingness of citizens to use the RVM instead of tossing the plastic bottles into the rubbish bin. The majority of the residential estates have exceeded the 400m-1000m travel distance (5-12 min walk) and some estates have even passed the 1 km travel distance, making it truly inconvenient and troublesome for the residents there to use it. This would decrease their willingness to use it.

For example, residents in Shun Cheung House (順祥閣) cannot easily access to the RVM despite having one in their subdistrict as it had exceeded the 1 km travel distance.

Interview Findings We had conducted interviews to 13 individuals in Wong Tai Sin. Out of the 13 people, 11 of them (84.62%) had heard about the RVM. Despite the large percentage of people who have heard about RVMs before, only 4 of them had used this machine prior to the interview. Concluding from the interviews, we have found out the 4 main reasons on why people would not use the RVMs.

1. No idea where the RVM is located at
2. Location of the RVM is far away from their home/ never seen it near home
3. The cash rebate of the RVM is unattractive 
4. The RVM was always full before and was unable to use it

Evaluation:

The intention of RVM is ideal as it provides cash incentives which acts as a bait to attract citizens to recycle. Despite having a cash rebate of only $0.1 per bottle, it has successfully collected 101M bottles cumulatively from 2022-2024.

However there are only 120 RVMs located in Hong Kong which is highly inadequate as the ratio of RVM : Household would be as high as 1 : 22,500. Furthermore, the location is often unknown to citizens despite wanting to use them.

The spatial distribution of the GREEN@COMMUNITY is mainly focused at urban areas with high population.

In our study area, there are only 2 GREEN@COMMUNITY recycling stores for the residents there to use, with one located inside Choi Wan Estate and the other inside Kai Yip Estate.

The first GREEN@CHOI WAN could not be easily accessed by citizens who are not living near King San House. Only residents of the Choi Wan Estate could actually use the GREEN@COMMUNITY.

Other residents from other estates cannot enjoy the high proximity with GREEN@COMMUNITY despite having it in their subdistrict.

Furthermore, their opening time is from 10 am-8 pm. Their opening hours are only 10 hours and night-time self-service recycling system is not available in every GREEN@COMMUNITY.

This would hinder people from using the GREEN@COMMUNITY as they may not be available during the time slot.

The redemption unit is also far away from some GREEN@COMMUNITY recycling stores. An interviewee expressed that the redemption unit is in San Po Kong and the distance is quite far and it would require her to take a bus to get there from Choi Wan. The accessibility is low and very inconvenient just for a small amount of prize. It would deter the willingness to use GREEN@COMMUNITY as the location of the prize redemption unit is unattractive.

Evaluation

The idea of GREEN@COMMUNITY is ideal as it provides a one-stop recycling spot for most recyclables. It is also found in some public estates so that residents there can access it easily and it would attract them to recycle due to the proximity.

The GREEN$ electronic participation incentive scheme acts as a bait to attract citizens to recycle as they can gain points that could be redeemed for daily necessities.

However, GREEN@COMMUNITY does not have many recycling stores as of now. It currently has 11 recycling stations, 77 recycling stores and 210+ recycling spots that are only open for a short period of time each week (E.g. every Saturday from 10 am-1 pm), their amount should gradually increase to facilitate recycling.

Redemption units should also be placed in all GREEN@COMMUNITY so people can redeem their prizes without hassle. Their opening hours would also hinder the usage as people may not be available during that period.

Recommendations

• The amount of GREEN@COMMUNITY recycling spots, stores, and stations should be increased gradually, starting from areas with a large number of households to ease the problem.
• Lengthen the opening hours or enable night-time self-service recycling in all GREEN@COMMUNITY (night-time self-service is already available in some recycling stores)
• Redemption units for GREEN$ should be available/ near in all GREEN@COMMUNITY so people can redeem their prizes instantly after they obtain the GREEN$. As a result, they would not have to travel long distances to redeem a small amount of prizes.

Up to 30% of the municipal waste dumped in the landfill is food waste, constituting the largest municipal solid waste category. In order to fully utilize the inevitable food waste produced, the Food Waste Collection Pilot Scheme has been carried out since 2021. The collected food waste would be turned into energy or resources and reduce the negative impacts if they were just disposed of in the landfill.

Currently, there are 176 food waste bins around Hong Kong. The ratio of Food Waste Collection Bins : Household would be 1 : 15,341.

The government had started to add more Food Waste Collection Bins in public housing estates and subsidize private housing estates to adopt smart bins technology in food waste collection through  Recycling Fund .

Compared to the average ratio, the ratio of Food Waste Collection Bins to households in our chosen study area is significantly lower. We believe that this is because a large number of public housing estates are found in our study area.

The majority of the residential estates are covered within the 10m-400m travel distance, unlike other recycling facilities that are sparse in location. The high proximity is attractive to citizens as it is convenient to recycle their food waste within a short distance. However, there could still be places to add more bins to fulfil the goal of 900 households sharing 1 Food Waste Collection Bin and covering all residential estates within the 250m travel distance.

As of now, a variety of recycling facilities are available in Hong Kong such as RVMs, GREEN@COMMUNITY, Kerbside Recycling Bins & Food Waste Collection Bins. These could allow the general public to carry out recycling daily conveniently, and incentives (cash rebate & GREEN$) are also provided to act as a bait to attract citizens to recycle. 

To answer the  sub-questions  mentioned above,

• Is the amount of the said recycling facilities adequate?

We believe that the amount of recycling facilities in Hong Kong is highly inadequate, for instance there are only 120 RVMs to accommodate our ~2.7 million domestic households, meaning that 22,500 households would have to share 1 RVM. Food Waste Collection Bins are also insufficient and the current ratio (1 Food Waste Collection Bin : 15,341 Households)  is way higher than the suggested number of 1 Food Waste Collection Bin : 900 Households by approximately 17 times.

• Could these recycling facilities be easily accessed?

Although the majority of these facilities are located inside/ near the public housing estates, it is still not accessible to the general public. It would take an average adult to walk ~5 mins for 400m which we hope to achieve so that all citizens can reach their closest recycling facility within 400m. However, it could be seen from the map that the majority of the residential estates are not covered within the 400m travel distance and cannot be accessed easily.

• How would accessibility affect citizens' willingness to recycle ?

We believe that if recycling facilities are placed inside each residential estate with a reasonable distance between each block, the convenience and high accessibility would attract citizens to recycle. If it could be accessed easily, citizens would not mind building up a habit of recycling to contribute to a better environment. However, if recycling facilities were located far away from citizen’s homes, it could greatly deter their willingness to recycle as it would take up a lot of their time and effort just to recycle a small amount of recyclables.

• How could the recycling system be improved? 

Concluding from our in-person interviews, we have discovered that the recycling awareness among citizens is fairly low and the majority do not have a habit of recycling. To increase the recycling culture locally, more basic promotion about recycling facilities available and education should be carried out to reach the goal of recycling. When these are carried out, the government should implement more recycling facilities around Hong Kong, starting with districts that are less equipped with facilities.

Apart from these, we have also discovered that in most areas, citizens cannot recycle all their recyclables all in one go as different types of recycling bins are not located close to each other. They would have to walk a long distance to recycle all of their collected recyclables. Also, some facilities are located in illogical places, such as a Food Waste Collection Bin for the general public located outside a restaurant. It makes completely no sense to place it there as only the restaurant would benefit from it, but not other citizens.

This situation has inspired us to create an 8-in-1 Recycling Bin which contains 8 different recycling bins in just one complex. It can enable the citizens to recycle nearly almost everything just in one trip. There are also sensors built inside of each bin which enables us to track the capacity. It has 2 main functions; notifying the cleaners to empty the bin & allowing users to judge if they should still proceed to the recycling spot to recycle in case its capacity is almost full.

On top of that, we have also designed a few app interfaces that connect the spatial data from the CSDI Portal, which could show users their nearest recycling bin, and with the sensors installed inside the bin, it can show users the current capacity of the bin easily.

In light of the unavailability of recycling facilities in different housing estates, we hope to increase its amount gradually in different areas.

In this case study, we have discovered that the current recycling system is ineffective and highly inadequate due to its low amount of facilities for some fairly new ones, such as RVMs and GREEN@COMMUNITYs.

By enhancing these facilities, it could increase the amount of recycling by citizens due to the more attractive accessibility than before.

Citizens believe that with more promotion and higher accessibility to recycling facilities, their willingness and awareness to recycle would be increased.

Apart from solely adding recycling facilities, we believe a more holistic approach should also be taken into account to build a well-developed and comprehensive recycling system in Hong Kong.

A more holistic approach towards waste management should be adopted in Hong Kong to map out a better future for a better environment. With that in mind, we have designed a slogan;

Let's PILE IT up!

P-Promotion ; I-Increase ; L-Legislation ; E-Education

I-Innovative ; T-Technology

What can be achieved in the future? 

More promotion and education about recycling should be carried out in order to raise the awareness of citizens to recycle. Every item recycled contributes to our society's better living environment and individual’s quality of life.

• Due to the shortage of manpower and time, we were unable to conduct more in-person interviews to the residents living in Wong Tai Sin. With this constraint, our study area is limited to Choi Hung, Choi Wan and Shun Lee, etc. (For the in-depth research)
• Only a small number of interviewees were spotted due to the time constraints and shortage of manpower.
• The interviewees were mainly focused on female housewives as they were mentioned by the GREEN@COMMUNITY staff to be the main group of residents who would come by often for recycling.
• Both authors had only started using ArcGIS online recently and were not familiar with the application and faced different problems in designing the StoryMap and WebMaps. However, we received great help and guidance from the Geospatial Lab staffs to overcome our difficulties and technical issues.
• The maps' accuracy is yet to improve as the data extracted from the CSDI Portal is dated back to 25/03/2024.
• The approach of filtering residential buildings doesn't account for residential structures like squatters which do not have associated sites.

These results and findings are based on our in person interviews in Wong Tai Sin. We have inputted our interview findings into Survery123 for data analyse and data presentation.

In our interview, we had covered citizens from different age ranges to get a comprehensive view.

• age_1 : population under 15 years old
• age_2 : population aged 15-24
• age_3 : population aged 25-44
• age_4 : population aged 45-64
• age_5 : population aged 65 and over

The majority of our interviewees were female (61.54%)

Out of 13 interviewees, 7 of them had recycling habits. Barely half of them had recycling habits which is not optimistic.

Furthermore, the interviewees who had recycling habits are mainly in the age range of age_3, age_4 and age_5. In contrast, secondary students that were interviewed generally did not had any recycling habits.

This reflected that youngsters nowadays lack of recycling awareness and do not understand the importance of recycling.

Out of 13 interviewees, 12 of them can identiy the colours of each recycling bins (3-coloured recycling bins).

As shown from the results, the majority at least have a basic understanding of recycling.

Out of the 7 people who have recycling habits, they all recycle quite frequently.

Some would recycle twice a month whilst some would recycle around twice per week. One interviewee shared that she would recycle daily due to the fact that recycling bins are close to her home.

When asked about whether citizens' awareness of recycling is enough, most of them believed that it is not enough whilst only one interviewee agreed that the awareness of recycling is enough.

6 interviewees believed that more promotion of recycling should be carried out in order to encourage recycling and cash-payouts could be distributed.

Furthermore, education, especially citizenship education for youngsters should be carried out as it is crucial to create this sense of awareness from a young age.

All of the interviewees disagreed that the current recycling system is enough.

Interviewees believed that different facilities such as Reverse Vending Machines should be installed in each estate to improve the current recycling system.

Different facilities should also be increased in different locations to increase the accessibility to encourage people to recycle.

More promotion should also be carried out, such as talks for elderlies, posters and advertisements.

• Basic Information about Reverse Vending Machines  https://www.hkrvms3.com.hk/hk/about 
• Population of Hong Kong  (CSDI Portal)  https://portal.csdi.gov.hk/geoportal/lang=en&datasetId=censtatd_rcd_1635933003339_9920  
• Distribution of Reverse Vending Machine  (CSDI Portal)  https://portal.csdi.gov.hk/geoportal/?lang=en&datasetId=epd_rcd_1638153978303_23086  
• Buildings (CSDI Portal)  https://portal.csdi.gov.hk/geoportal/lang=en&datasetId=landsd_rcd_1637211194312_35158  
• Distribution of GREEN@COMMUNITY (CSDI Portal)  https://portal.csdi.gov.hk/geoportal/?lang=en&datasetId=epd_rcd_1630899452408_9505  
• Distribution of Recycling Bins (CSDI Portal)  https://portal.csdi.gov.hk/geoportal/?lang=en&datasetId=epd_rcd_1630899452408_9505