Litter Problem
According to the data by Environmental Protection Department (EPD), over 1400 gramme of solid waste have been produced by Hong Kong citizens on daily basis, and the yearly total 5740000 metric ton of solid waste have been produced in Hong Kong. At the same time, referring to the statistics by Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD), 2700 metric ton of waste have been collected within the country park in 2023. The litters have been transported to the landfill, which continue increase the pressure on landfill capacity, and while the landfill is already causing negative impact to the environment by its nature and operation.
Besides the rubbish which processed through normal path, there are still many rubbishes have not processed normally, which including the litters have not clean up and collected. The litters could be found at the streets, trails, grassland, riverside, lakeside and beach. The litters including cigarette butts, plastic packaging and plastic bottles. These rubbishes will produce harmful impact to the environment, damaging the land and ocean ecosystem also the food-chain.
For dealing with the litter problem, government has initiated different measures for reducing the waste generation and solving the problem of littering. For examples, established GREEN@COMMUNITY, encourage citizens engaged in recycling, increase the efforts on fight against the littering blackspots and conducting environmental education. In Country Park, government has launched “Take Your Litter Home” campaign for educating citizens and constructed facilities for facilitates citizens bring their own water bottles while visiting Country Park.
However, stakeholders indicate the litter problem is still severe, and on-site observations conducted by Moving! Pick! also noticed that the littering problem is still severe, which including both urban and country park area. In urban area, the number of litters on the streets are huge, especially many cigarette butts are left behind after smoking by the pedestrians, which causing there still number of litters are left on the streets even there is cleaner on duty in the area. In country park area, we have observed that there is cleaning staff cleaning up the rubbish in the main route of country park, but still there are many litters, particular at minor routes and hiddenness locations. Besides, we also observe that some of the hiddenness locations which do not belong to country park are covered by litters, it may due to lack of management.
By this could found that, the environmental awareness of citizens is very important, especially we need to more relay on the environmental awareness of country park visitors after rubbish bins have been removed in country park, visitors need to keep the rubbish until they found the collect point or prevent to generate litters. The litter problem cannot mainly relay clean up and rubbish collection by the cleaners.
Therefore, Moving! Pick! hope to promote plogging activities, for cleaning up the litter and letting citizens feeling and understanding the litter problem in person, in order to reduce generate litters, stop littering and integrate plogging activity into daily life, solving the litter problem and protect the environment collectively.
References
Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. (2024, Jul 29). Take litter home. https://www.afcd.gov.hk/english/country/cou_how/cou_how_gcp/cou_how_gcp_tak/cou_how_gcp_tak.html
Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. (2025, Apr 09). Useful Statistics. https://www.afcd.gov.hk/english/country/cou_lea/cou_lea_use/cou_lea_use.html
Green Council. (2014, Mar 28). Our views on building large scale incinerator and landfill. Panel on Environmental Affairs. https://www.legco.gov.hk/yr13-14/chinese/panels/ea/papers/ea0328cb1-1175-1-c.pdf
Liu, C. Y. & Lin, C. Y. (2023, Mar 17). Should be value the problem of littering in Country Park. Kinliu.hk. https://n.kinliu.hk/kinliunviews/%E9%83%8A%E9%87%8E%E5%85%AC%E5%9C%92%E9%9A%A8%E6%89%8B%E6%A3%84%E7%BD%AE%E5%9E%83%E5%9C%BE%E5%95%8F%E9%A1%8C%E6%87%89%E7%95%B6%E5%8F%97%E5%88%B0%E9%87%8D%E8%A6%96%E3%80%80%E6%96%87%EF%BC%9A%E5%BB%96/
Statistics Unit, Environmental Protection Department. (2024, Oct). Monitoring of Solid Waste in Hong Kong 2023. https://www.wastereduction.gov.hk/sites/default/files/resources_centre/waste_statistics/msw2023_eng.pdf
The Green Earth. (2022, Apr 04). Thousand Kilometres’ Litter Survey Of Hong Kong Trails Tissue – The Most Common Countryside Litter / A Vista Of Overflowing Tissue Flowers. https://greenearth.org.hk/en-GB/news/Waste_Reduction/297#gsc.tab=0
Wojnowska-Baryła, I., Bernat, K., & Zaborowska, M. (2022). Plastic Waste Degradation in Landfill Conditions: The Problem with Microplastics, and Their Direct and Indirect Environmental Effects. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(20), 13223-. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192013223
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