The University of Hong Kong: Saving the Space, Saving the Earth

Authors. WONG Ling Yee Willa, WONG Hoi Ming, CHO Ling, WOO Shing Hin Bryan

Throughout the process of our project, we changed our focus from waste disposal to waste recycling and finally to saving space in the landfill. HKU is chosen as our site to study and Tetra Paks are chosen as our target object to study. As students of HKU and residents of the nearby dormitory, we have found that there are many Paks which can be flattened before being thrown into rubbish bins. We have done some investigations around the main campus, the results were shocking, as almost all Tetra Paks found were uncompressed and occupying a fair amount of space. Throwing away uncompressed Tetra Paks quickens the rate at which landfills in Hong Kong fill up. Furthermore, we have done an experiment actually showing how much space will be saved if one Tetra Pak is disposed of after flattening. Moreover, in order to arouse the awareness of this green act in HKU, we will redesign a tailor-made bin to encourage people to flatten Tetra Paks. Finally, we would like to share some information about countries which recycle Tetra Paks successfully, as these can act as references for Hong Kong in the future.