Credit: www.info.gov.hk
If you’re still griping about the insufficient government
effort in battling environmental pollution, it’s perhaps time you stopped and take
a serious look at Hong Kong’s first Community Green Station (CGS), just opened
in Sha Tin less than a month ago.
Run by non-profit making organisations, the CGS’s, expected
to acquire a presence in each of the 18 districts to promote environmental education
while serving as a spot to collect different types of recyclables, are designed
with aesthetics and practicality in mind, and have therefore incorporated
elements of sustainable development and green buildings. The Sha Tin CGS, for
instance, is now a public place composed of container modules, reformed from
the temporary parking space it previously was. A quick tour at the Sha Tin CGS
reveals the multi-purpose rooms and ancillary facilities built for exhibitions,
seminars, workshops and other kinds of educational activities.
Now, although there are already existing recyclers (with
whom the Sha Tin CGS will be working closely with to provide a better recycling
solution), one thing you should note about the CGS is that it will focus on the
provision of collection services for recyclables of lower economic value, such
as electrical appliances, compact fluorescent lamps and tubes, glass bottles
and rechargeable batteries. The materials will then be delivered to trustworthy
and qualified recyclers to turn the waste materials into useful resources.
The operator – Christian Family Service Centre, in the case
of Sha Tin CGS – has already established collaboration arrangements with over
70 housing estates, institutions and schools in the district as we speak, and
the network is expected to expand further in the future. For so long we have
been wanting more government subsidies and support for the local recycling
industry to ensure more waste materials are recycled, and it looks like now that
the government has done something conducive to a sustainable future, as a
response to the hitherto unsatisfactory recycling situation. Surely the CGS
initiative deserves some applause?
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