Mid-Autumn Festival
Mooncakes and Mooncake boxes
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According to the "Survey on Consumption and Celebration Habits During the Mid-Autumn Festival" conducted by Green Power in 2009, Hong Kong people dumped more than 2,850,000 mooncakes during the year. When stacked together, these would form 270 TWO International Finance Centre.
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Carbon dioxide emissions resulted from this wastage totalled around 1955 tonnes, which takes 160,000 trees a year's time to fully absorb the emission.
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It is estimated that over 1 million mooncake boxes are discarded every year; their disposal costs around HK$30,000. Yet if all these boxes were recycled and reused ¡V as, for example, construction materials ¡V they could generate HK$200,000-250,000.
 
Lanterns
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In the "Survey on Consumption and Celebration Habits During the Mid-Autumn Festival" conducted by Green Power in 2009, it was estimated over 1.94 million plastic lanterns were discarded last year.
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Paper and plastic lanterns that are used in celebrating the festival are often abandoned afterwards.
 
Candles
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In country parks, fires can only be lit at designated or camping areas. Offenders will be prosecuted.
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If candles are carelessly or inappropriately burnt ("burning wax"), they leave ugly marks on parks and beaches. This is also illegal.
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Burning candles or wax should not be practiced, as it is dangerous and may even cause skin-burnt.
 
Refuse and food scraps from barbeque
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Many people choose to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival by holding barbecues. Yet these can generate considerable amounts of refuse, which is often not properly disposed of afterwards, polluting country parks and beaches.
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Disposable cutlery such as plastic bowls, plastic forks, paper cups and wooden chopsticks are widely used in barbecues. These items of cutlery cannot be reused and waste large amounts of resources.
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In the "Survey on Consumption and Celebration Habits During the Mid-Autumn Festival" conducted by Green Power in 2009, it was estimated that more than 5.6 million items of disposable cutlery were disposed of last year.
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The production of plastic disposable cutlery releases around 580kg of carbon dioxide; it would take 48 trees to absorb this amount in a year. The carbon dioxide release aggravates global warming.
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The production of plastic disposable cutlery releases around 580kg of carbon dioxide; it would take 48 trees to absorb this amount in a year. The carbon dioxide release aggravates global warming.
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Meat is "high-carbon" food, as livestock feed, farm animals' digestive processes, and meat manufacture and transport, result in releases of carbon dioxide and methane. We estimate the leftover food disposed of after barbecuing during last year's Mid-Autumn Festival resulted in 2097 tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere.
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Due to hygiene concerns or lack of suitable containers, unconsumed food is usually not taken away and is thus wasted.
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Even with recycling bins set up in the barbecue sites, some people still do not classify and recycle aluminium cans and plastic bottles. The waste ends up in rubbish bins.
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The continuous burning of charcoal during barbecue release 6,604 tonnes of carbon, which can only be absorbed by 550,000 trees in a year.
 
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The estimated carbon dioxide emissions from barbecues during last year's Mid-Autumn Festival exceeded 8702 tonnes, which can only be absorbed by 720,000 trees in a year.
 
 
Christmas and New Year's Eve
In a joyful festival like Christmas and New Year's Eve, people give presents and enjoy feasts together. However, much waste is actually generated, including gift packaging materials such as wrapping paper, paper boxes and plastic foam; household decorations; excess food from Christmas feasts; Christmas cards; and snow sprays, fluorescent sticks, aluminium cans, plastic bottles and paper.
  ¡E On Christmas Eve 2007, about 5 tonnes of rubbish were collected from around Tsim Sha Tsui.
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Sending Christmas cards is a traditional way of giving blessings to friends and family. However, countless trees are sacrificed to produce the cards. If every family in Hong Kong were to give five Christmas cards, 2,166 trees would be cut down.
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We always wrap gifts so as to make them more pleasing, but excess packaging wastes paper and accelerates forest logging. It¡¦s estimated that if every person in Hong Kong was to give one thoroughly-wrapped present, a total of 138 tonnes of wrapping paper would be used, requiring 2,400 trees and 240,000 litres of petroleum as raw materials.
 
Chinese New Year
At Lunar New Year's Eve, Hong Kong families traditionally carry out year-end cleaning at home and purchased new clothes to welcome the New Year. These traditional activities generate enormous festival waste includes old clothing, electrical appliances, furniture, paper, books and decorative objects thrown away during year-end cleaning, flowers and pots, packaging and boxes for Chinese New Year gifts, red packet and newspapers. Plus, many aluminium cans and plastic bottles are thrown away after Hong Kong's annual fireworks display.
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According to the Survey on the Attitude and Habits of Hong Kong People towards a Greener Chinese New Year conducted by Green Power in 2008, Hong Kong wasted at least 70 million red packets ¡V equivalent to felling 3,600 trees every year. As self-adhesive red packets and those packets printed with Chinese zodiac animals are hard to reuse, they are especially wasteful.
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The same survey reveals that 67% of the respondents say that sea cucumber, fish maws and abalones are consumed in their Chinese New Year Eve's dinner due to tradition and habit. These animals are facing extinction out of over-fishing.
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Under the influence of Chinese tradition, large amounts of old furniture and old clothes are thrown away during Chinese New Year. From 2003 to 2005, the amount of rubbish collected during each of the Chinese New Years amounted to 300 tonnes more than the most waste collected in any other months during these three years.
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People often prefer beautifully wrapped gifts. Assuming each household gives 2 wrapped gifts, producing the amount of wrapping paper consumed every year requires 1,600 trees.
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In 2008, a total of 465 tonnes of rubbish were collected from Hong Kong's 14 Chinese New Year's Eve markets. From Victoria Park alone, 130 tonnes of rubbish were collected.
 
Reference:
#Giving Up Bad Habits for a Greener Chinese New Year, Green Power
 
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