Dont throw out your New Year tangerine trees, says Hong Kong green group
A conservation group is calling on the public to ponder the environmental impact of some 40,000 tangerine trees they purchase and then throw out every Lunar New Year, most of them destined for the city’s overflowing landfills.
Once again about 1,400 tonnes of “lucky” tangerine trees are expected to be disposed of at the end of this holiday season, roughly the same as last year, according to the Tai Po-based Environmental Association.
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Association chief executive Dr Yau Wing-kwong said the lack of any mandatory waste charging gave Hongkongers no incentive to keep the trees at home. A lack of awareness of how these plants could be recycled and regrown as easily as any potted plant did not help either.
“We should respect all life forms. Throwing them out after just a couple of weeks is wasteful and adds more pressure to our landfills,” said Yau, adding that the weight of disposed trees every year was equivalent to about 60 double-decker buses.
He hopes a six-year-old tangerine tree recultivating programme at the Fung Yuen Butterfly Reserve, which the association runs, can set an example for a city which recycles just a little over 2.5 per cent of all tangerine trees on the market.
Since 2010, the group has collected about 4,000 trees, mainly from shopping malls, and replanted them on the hills of the Tai Po reserve or given them to organisations willing to take them such as the Hong Chi Association.
The plants’ leaves provide a valuable source of food and nesting grounds for at least seven species of butterfly including the Asian swallowtail, the Red Helen and the Common Mormon .
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Those at home can do the same, Yau stressed. Tangerine trees are evergreen and can bear fruit throughout the year in several growth cycles if pruned and cared for properly. “It can be done easily and does not require any professional gardening skill.”
To regrow the plants organically, all that is needed is to trim their leaves and roots by about a third and give them a change of soil. Organic fertiliser will need to be applied regularly and pruning would be needed four times a year.
The Lunar New Year is one of the least environmentally friendly holiday seasons, with about 320 million red envelopes doled out at the expense of 16,300 trees. Residents also get rid of large quantities of packaging and old clothes and furniture.
The government collects about 300 tonnes of rubbish on new year’s day at the city’s 15 fairs.
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