Install bins for depositing organic matter

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 05 February, 1994, 12:00am
UPDATED : Saturday, 05 February, 1994, 12:00am

YOUR reader (''Name and Address Supplied'') asks in his/her letter (South China Morning Post, January 25) why an apple core thrown into the undergrowth is viewed as litter.

It is certainly true that apple cores and other organic matter are biodegradable and enrich the soil. But in heavily-used country parks too many of them around create visual pollution. Who likes to walk on a trail carpeted by orange peels and banana skins? If one throws them around one spoils the scenery and breaks the law. If one puts them in ''proper'' litter bins, one further pollutes the earth because the trucks which take them away pump out toxic fumes and contribute to global warming while using up energy resources, and the organic-matter-turned-litter takes up landfill space unnecessarily. I take home every apple core, banana skin, etc, and have them composted in my garden, to the benefit of my vegetables and fruit trees.

Not everyone in Hong Kong has this luxury. The sensible solution is for the Country Park Authority to separate compostable matters at source by providing additional, clearly-marked bins for organic matter, so that visitors can deposit them accordingly.

Park cleaners will then collect them and compost them locally together with all dead leaves and branches. The compost will be used to enrich local plant life.

This might require a little extra administrative cost and a lot of promotional work, but the environment and the public at large will stand to gain in the long run. This will be a good opportunity to educate the public about loving and caring for the countryside and appreciating the regenerative miracle of nature. Green Power volunteers to help in promoting such worthwhile schemes.

SIMON S. C. CHAU Chairperson Green Power