DB Green

The passing of Typhoon Hagupit over Hong Kong last week saw great devastation to local beaches around Lantau Island where tons of rubbish and debris has been dumped and left on the beach. Nim Shue Wan beach and Cheung Sha Lan beach were no exception.
The FEHD is working hard to remove the rubbish off Nim Shue Wan beach. Their weekly clean up last Thursday saw them collecting over 200 bags of rubbish in over 4 hours, unfortunately leaving about 75% of the beach still strewn with rubbish. They have stated that they will return to the beach with the aim of removing all the rubbish,
but cannot guarantee that this will be done immediately.
Unfortunately, they have no plans to remove the rubbish from Cheung Sha Lan beach.
Some concerned individuals have found the time to go to Nim Shue Wan and Cheung Sha Lan beaches in the days since the typhoon, to pick up what they can, to contribute to the effort to clean the beaches, and to ensure that the debris does not get washed out into the ocean again. There are many, many plastic bottles, and an unimaginable amount of Styrofoam on the beaches.
Perhaps by starting with recyclables and Styrofoam alone – by collecting a few bags of rubbish each, we can make a difference and help clean the beaches, restoring them to their pre-typhoon and post ICC clean up state again.

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A great big thank you to all those who took the time to come down to Nim Shue Wan and Cheung Sha Lan beaches on September 20 for the International Coastal Cleanup.

It was DB Green’s second International Coastal Cleanup, and we are so pleased to have started what is now an annual tradition in DB, giving individuals a chance to take part in an important global effort that raises awareness to the issues of marine debris. The International Coastal Cleanup, and all other regularly held beach cleanups, allow us to take a good hard look at the current state of our oceans… and at our responsibility to protect the ocean from harm.

Tons of rubbish, much of it plastic, can be picked up on beaches around the world on any given day. Rubbish layers the ocean floor and kills marine life that mistakes it for food. It has become increasingly necessary to actively work to improve the state of our ocean by taking matters into our own hands. It’s the little things that count, like, joining a beach cleanup whenever you can, making sure to recycle, use reusable bags and containers – ensuring that you’re not contributing to debris, on land and in the ocean.

With the help of volunteers, the beach cleanups allow us to coordinate with and report to the Marine and Environmental Protection Departments, raising awareness to the the issues and behaviors that cause beach and marine debris. We hope that with the continued support and commitment of all the amazing volunteers, we will be able to collectively ‘take matters into our own hands’, to improve the health of our ocean, and to really make a difference.

We got some fantastic results for the ICC last Saturday. It was an incredibly hot day! Thank you all for braving the heat and meticulously recording all the rubbish picked! Our results will be included in the Ocean Conservancy’s annual report for 2008.

Thank you again!
Salina

Here is a break down of our results:
Beaches cleaned: Nim Shue Wan beach, Cheung Sha Lan beach Total number of volunteers on the beaches: 59 Total weight of rubbish collected: 238 kg Total number of rubbish bags filled: 43 Most peculiar items found: A message in a bottle, a bicycle, drawers, an unused pack of sanitary pads.
Most disturbing find of the day: 52 syringes Top 10 most numerous item collected:
1. Food wrappers/containers
2. Caps, lids
3. Straws, stirrers
4. Cups, plates, forks, knives, spoons
5. Cigarettes, cigarette filters
6. Fishing lines
7. Rope
8. Plastic bags
9. Clothing, shoes
10. Cigarette lighters

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Lovely day for it! Any one free for an hour to help would be great? And two people to stand in line to register for the next one? (I’m still short of helpers at the moment.)
I think we are near the bank/post office area with a double stall. I’m wearing a grey top/black trousers if you don’t know me.
Any items you want to donate you can bring down. Suggested price would help me out.
The flea market is a really great green activity because it encourages the second most important R of the 3 R’s- REUSE. IF you can buy second hand rather than new you are decreasing the requirement for more stuff to be made from our precious and declining resources. Likewise things you don’t use anymore can find their purpose again in someone else’s home. Your shopping at the flea market can be guilt free! Don’t forget to bring down you own bags for taking home that surprise item that tickles your fancy!
My number is 98109070 if you can’t find me.
See you there,
Kate

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Mark your calendar!
On October 12th, from 11:00 – 16:00, DB Green, together with Winson Cleaners, and DB City Management, will be hosting an information day in the plaza. There will be music, games for kids, environmental information booths, collection stations for recyclables, and talks by the EPD.

Bring your family and spend a few hours checking out the info available. Ask questions about recycling or other environmental topics. Get the kids excited and involved in understanding and improving the environment in DB. See you there!

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On Thursday night, October 9th, DB Green will be co-sponsoring an environmental info evening at the DB Marina Club marquee. Together with DBMC, we will be sharing information about recycling, sewage pump-out for live-aboards, and using more environmentally-friendly detergents & cleaners. All to help make the Marina Club a greener place to live.

The event starts at 7:30 and will finish by 9:30. All DBMC members are invited and will be offered drinks and a few snacks to help make the evening fun. The Marina Club will also provide a bouncy castle and some games if you’d like to bring kids. Come along to hear how you can make a difference in the marina environment with just a few simple steps. Contact DBMC to reserve your seats. Look forward to seeing you there!

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Hi everyone,

OPEN AIR MARKET
I am a little slow on getting information out about the Open Air Market we had on Sunday 7th Sep. What a great day for sales with 10 new joiners and a very healthy $6565 made!! That, I think, is our biggest sale and we were busy all day thanks to the new samples given to us by BCC Pacific. The way those clothes were flying off the rack is a testament to the lovely quality and I hope means The Earth Collection folk are going to do a bumper season! A big thankyou. Also big thanks to Tracey, Dana, Denise and Jennifer (and I think I’ve missed someone..) for helping me out. It was a very hot day and your help was a Godsend. I need someone to run the stall on the 5th October as I will be away that day until late afternoon. Any volunteers to help sometime between 9:30 and 5pm please reply- thankyou??

Last Meeting
Well…. not the best turn out- did the words from my previous email ’scream’ and ‘help’ in big font scare you all off?? 6 people over the 2 meetings but we had some good chats about the upcoming events with emphasis on the October 12th recycling event in the plaza. I understand how busy we all are so any help is great and if there are any of you who can help on the displays beforehand or on the day please let me know. I have a number of ideas for displays that wouldn’t take too much time if your family would like to participate…. One I thought of today as I reached for another real estate brochure from the mailbox is if one family collected all their junk mail between now and October 12th and put it on a poster board to spell the words ‘junk mail’ – with maybe underneath a sign saying ‘Don’t want it- then sign here….Name and village’ and we can approach the villages to stop junk mail- one of our villages already has a no junk mail policy I just found out. We could also have a no junk mail sticker made. Anyone interested in that one? Also maybe someone could find me a kiddies colouring picture that we can put on a table with some crayons. Printed on recycled paper on both sides of course and with a recycle theme- we can cover costs of printing and paper. Anyone? (Also by the by we notice Pen and Paper is stocking recycled paper now at $65 a ream.)

Mid Autumn Beach Sweep
on Monday was a great little event with a great turn out. The beach was of course quite messy and the bins labelled recycle bins were clearly not used for that so we need to fix that for next year and lots more of them. The kids had fun finding all the glow sticks and boy there were ALOT- and that’s just the ones people didn’t put in the rubbish bin or take home. Other offenders were wax from candles and lots and lots of glass and plastic bottles. By the time 10am came round it was getting pretty hot and the beach was looking 100% better. Thanks to Salina and Tracey for organising and the numerous little helpers and big helpers who came along. Some photos are on Flickr with more to be added from Tracey and Salina I believe. In fact hubby has created our own Flickr site for all our events so we have put a few events in there if you want to take a look. I brought home all the glow sticks that weren’t set on fire to hopefully make some kind of display for the Recycling Day. Any ideas anyone? The aim of the morning was to raise awareness to the waste and to come up with ideas to make the Lantern Festival less wasteful in following years but without being the fun police- what ideas do you have? Lets see if we can’t have some impact on the huge amount of rubbish for next years festival. Here’s some info about glow sticks…. Did you know they have glass inside and that’s what makes the crunch.. my husband just looked at me like I was an idiot for not knowing that…
http://imav8n.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/when-good-glow-sticks-go-bad/
http://www.thestar.com/SpecialSections/EarthHour/article/404659
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glow_sticks

International Beach Cleanup Saturday 9-12 with Hemingway’s BBQ to follow.
Tracey has written an email I will send out shortly. Hope to see you there. I arrive in from a flight just in time so please refrain from making comments about the dark circles under my eyes!!

Thanks everyone!
Cheers,
Kate

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Please come and participate in this fun and worthwhile day. DB Green is organising the cleanup of two of our neighbouring beaches that are in need of some TLC. The day coincides with the flagship event of the Ocean Concervancy when millions of volunteers collect data from all our waterways to produce a global snapshot on the state of these valuable resources.

What to bring – lots of family and friends! A refillable waterbottle (we have loads of water kindly donated by Hoi Yu), lots of sunscreen and sun protection and sturdy shoes that may get wet.

What we will give you – gloves, bags for collecting rubbish and importantly a data collection record sheet to note down ALL the rubbish you collect. We also have some rakes and tongs to use and on hand we have first aid facilities, a basic toilet and handwashing.

To celebrate afterwards, the wonderful team at Hemingway’s will be feeding us with a great BBQ on the beach.

We are looking forward to having as many people join us to make this another fantastic day!

How to find us – follow the road to the Marina Club and just before you reach the Mui Wo and Peng Chau ferry piers lookout for the sign that says DB GREEN BEACH CLEANUP TODAY. We will meet at Nim Sue Wan beach jetty.

If you have any questions that aren’t answered here, please email beachcleanup.DB@gmail.com

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If you are keen on learning a bit more about recycling in Hong Kong, there are a number of resources and organizations you can go to.

First stop should probably be the Environmental Protection Department, or EPD.  The EPD has a comprehensive area of its web site that discusses the Waste Reduction Scheme they manage in Hong Kong.  Their site also provides detailed information about exactly what is recyclable, amount of recyclables collected each year, etc.

EPD Main Site

EPD Waste Reduction & Recycling

EPD Detailed Poster of Recyclables

Another place to look is organizations involved with re-using and distributing usable household or personal goods.  A number of the organizations have drop-off or collection points, some may even come to your home or office.

Salvation Army Position of bins in DB are: Plaza Lane(Outside the Post Office), Haven Court, Greenland Court, Crystal Court, Marine View, Neo Horizon, Costa Court
Cross-Roads

Oxfam shops

Finally, if you are interested in an overall view of how to “go green” in Hong Kong, check out the book by Catherine Touzard and Fabienne Malaval Dupre, “Going Green in Hong Kong”.  It is available at Dymocks.

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There are only a few items which cannot currently be recycled in Discovery Bay.  Below is a brief description of the main categories.

Glass:
In Hong Kong, very little glass is recycled. As the majority of recycling plants are located in China, and the cost to transport heavy and bulky glass adds significantly to the overall recycling cost, the economic incentive has been reduced to near zero.  There are some experimental glass recycling plants in Tuen Mun, where glass is crushed and made into bricks.  However the quantity of used glass they can currently absorb is relatively small.

Some Paper Types:
There are a few types of paper such as carbon and wax paper that are not recyclable. For more specific info, check this site

Paper Box (UHT-type) Food Packaging:
There is currently no facility in Hong Kong for recycling paper-based cartons used to package milk, juice, sauces and other liquid food and drinks.  Because they are manufactured using paper, plastic, and aluminium bonded together, the recycling process is more complicated than for straight paper or plastic individually.  When disposing of these packages flatten to reduce the space taken up in the rubbish bins, transport and landfills.

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Nearly everything can be recycled in Hong Kong.  Below is a quick description of the main categories:

Metal: This is the biggest money earner of all recyclables. Aluminium cans generate the most money (about 8-10c a can), but in fact all metal gets recycled from food cans, to milk powder cans, to cake tins to curtain rails and broken lamp components, even metal bath tubs – if it has metal it will be recycled. Clean the food cans for hygienic purposes. [If you can, crush all cans so they don’t take up too much space during transport and storage.]

Plastics: All plastics, regardless of whether it is numbered can be recycled. For example: broken bits of plastic and old toys; plastic shopping or food bags; all plastic packaging, even Saran/Glad wrap; CDs and cases, food trays (including polystyrene). If it has food on it, clean it for hygienic purposes. [Again crushing bottles/plastics saves space and hence, storage and transportation costs.]

Paper: Practically every form of paper that comes into your house can be recycled, including: real estate flyers, cardboard cereal boxes, Park N’Shop delivery cartons, moving boxes, newspapers, envelopes, magazines, paper bags. This is the majority of DB’s (and Hong Kong’s) recycling and earns about 50c per kilogram.  Note: Anything that is a bonded combination of plastic, paper and/or aluminium foil (e.g. UHT milk, juice boxes, soup, etc.) are not currently recyclable in Hong Kong.

Clothes:
Clothes may be given directly to your helper, church, Salvation Army (7 drop boxes around DB including one behind the post office in the plaza), or Winson Cleaners.

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE):
Winson are introducing a collection program for waste electrical equipment such as: computers, monitors, printers, stereo electronics, mobile phones, and household appliances.  Every week a designated location in Discovery Bay will be established to collect these items.  See this link for the latest information.

For unwanted appliances that are still functioning, remember there are a number of places to re-sell them: Park nShop board, DB forum web site, Residents Club board, DB flea market, Inside DB classifieds.  It is always better to re-use than to recycle.http://www.dbay.com.hk/icms2/template?series=28&article=2369

Fluorescent and Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFL):
Light bulbs are recyclable in Hong Kong, but are not currently collected in Discovery Bay. There are drop off locations around HK. Due to their toxic mercury content all fluorescent light bulbs (including CFLs) should be recycled.

Rechargeable Batteries:
All rechargeable batteries are recyclable in Hong Kong. In Discovery Bay, you can drop off your exhausted batteries of all types and sizes at the HKR Management office (Behind Park nShop) or McDonalds.  Rechargeable batteries include those from products such as: mobile phones, MP3/MD players, cordless phones, portable CD/VCD/DVD players, digital cameras, electronic dictionaries, video cameras, shavers, notebook computers, electrical toothbrushes, Personal Digital Assistances, portable vacuum cleaners, power tools and electronic game sets. 2A/3A/9V rechargeable batteries also fall within the recyclable category.

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