CUEGU

CUHK Employees General Union

eNews (June 2018)

Editor-in-chief: Chan Yin Ha Vivian | Data: Wong Ka Po | Design and Typesetting: Cheng Chun Wing, Aidan Chau and Dora Lam (e-version) | Translation: Emily Ng

So Much Garbage at CU

(Text and Photo: Ah Po)

Garbage produced by us CU-ers

The modern garbage philosophy says: If you don’t see it, it doesn’t exist. But what is there when you actually look at it may be appalling. In April, I participated in an annual waste audit of CU. As participants, we weighed each garbage bag collected, classified the contents in each, to see what we had dumped. 

Wasn’t that stinking? Yes, it stank, oh, did it ever stink. But you also discovered an unimaginable amount of usable stuff and things: clothes, shoes, eye-glasses, nail polish, paper bags, unopened packs of vegetables and meat, unopened and not yet expired bottled juice ... The sad truth is that, together with other recyclable resources like paper, tin cans, plastic bottles, glass bottles, etc., they were all mixed with other waste, destined for landfill, as garbage. 

Our target that day was to handle 400 bags of garbage, about 25% of the total daily garbage output at CU. Yes, you are right,  every day, we are producing 1,600 bags of garbage on our campus! One may say that: Well ... CU is so big, that may be a reasonable figure. But the landfills have all been exhausted, plastic waste is rushing into the ocean everyday polluting the fish, strangling the turtles, killing the whales–all for this “Well ...”.  Can't we reduce waste?  Of course, yes, surely we should! In fact, many CU-ers are already proactively doing so. Students championed for a “no-plastic” Shaw Night this year, successfully reducing the use of plastic bottles and tin cans by 96%, attracting even the attention of the media. So I say, it is not difficult to reduce waste, it is only difficult to set our minds to it.

Leftovers, and even unopened packs of food, are often found in garbage bags. Would you not call it a waste of resources?

Bin it to be cost efficient?

In early May, my department moved its office, a typical occasion for producing an ocean of garbage. Some still usable assets had to be sent to the landfill because of property rights issues. To find new homes for things that colleagues abandoned, it would have taken manpower and time to facilitate matching and logistics. Therefore, the easiest way out would have been to just trash them–if we wanted to achieve the so-called “cost efficiency”. Rather than spending lots of time to recycle and giveaway, dumping them is more “cost efficient”. But by doing so, we are in fact neglecting the cost associated with the prcessing of garage , say, the working conditions of the lower stream labour, nature’s ability to digest such waste, etc. Once the earth’s precious resources, like land, water and air, are polluted by this huge amount of waste, it is not to be recovered by any amount of waste charge. This is not to mention that fundamentally the government is not determined to implement any waste charge scheme on a polluter-pays principle.

It all begins with you and me

My colleague and I spent two days to sort out, re-apply, recycle and donate the resources of the old office. The exercise made us realise how one should not pass the responsibility of protecting the environment to others. More specifically, we must not think that just by paying, we could get other people to handle our "garbage". Under CU's policy of sustainable development, the university has long since launched its Waste Management Policy and Guidelines to encourage its staff to observe the 6Rs principles. In particular, departments are expected to coordinate the flow and usage of resources and disseminate information about waste reduction among their staff.

The 6Rs

  • 【Rethink】Think twice before buying and explore ways to use existing materials more efficiently.
  • 【Refuse】 Avoid making unnecessary purchases or buying items with low quality/durability, toxic content or limited usefulness.
  • 【Reduce】Buy only when necessary; Go for items with minimal packaging and that can be reused/recycled and made of recycled materials; avoid food waste and use of toxic materials (See University's Green Purchasing Policy and Green Purchasing Guidelines)
  • 【Reuse】Give unwanted items to parties who can make use of them; use reusable cups, dishware and tableware at meetings and events.
  • 【Repair】Repair items before replacing them
  • 【Recycle/Recover】Separate usable resources from wastes at source (Please refer to the 'Recycling Tips' and 'Recycling Locations' posters); participate in the food waste recycling programmes on the campus.

Let's reduce waste together

The future generations will be very grateful to you if you and your department would take the following actions:
  • Bring your own bottle and own box for takeaway. We can save N number of bottles and 2,000-3,000 lunch boxes a day.
  • Avoid individually packaged veggie, fruit, meat or snacks.
  • Do not keep disposable cups or capsule coffee in your pantry.
  • Do not use disposable cutlery and utensils in tea receptions; make reasonable estimation of the amount of food and prioritise finger food that does not require cutlery.
  • Use electronic documents to avoid hardcopies; if hardcopies are required, print them double-faced and use environmentally friendly paper.
  • Promote by electronic means; upload your promotion materials for download to limit distribution of print materials.
  • Use durable materials and flexible designs for promotional materials, signage and counter setup that allow for reuse.
  • Use pens with refillable ink.
  • Post posters in prominent positions in the office to remind staff of environmental policies.
  • Provide training and workshops on environmental management and waste production to staff.

For more Go-Green tips, you may want to visit:

For free cycling of second-hand goods, check

[1] The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Waste Management Policy and Guidelines, https://bit.ly/2xcwp09

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