Post D: Organic waste management initiative

Organic waste management initiative for universities

Necessity/ Why universities?
Based on the two case studies I investigated (waste management in Hong Kong and Japan) in blog C, there is a key approach to organic waste management, which is education.
Education plays a significant role in raising environmental awareness. In relating to the fundamental change in participation and habits, the attitude towards wastes of individuals is a significant aspect of organic waste management.
Universities educate most of the people who develop and manage society;s institutions. They have profound responsibilities to enhance the awareness, knowledge and technologies to make a sustainable environment for the future. Therefore, universities play the important role to build up the intellectual and conceptual framework to help create a sustainable future.

Scope/ Focus:
There are multitudes of causes that contribute to current situation of waste management:

I looked into society factors that influence the practices of organic waste management for education institutions. And I specifically looked into societal factors includes culture and education. 

Research
Keywords: education and awareness, public participation, attitudes and behaviors

Current situation of organic waste management in Hong Kong:
In recent years, Hong Kong government has been operating several programs regarding organic waste problems (posted in Post C- case study), but the current situation is till not good, the amount of organic waste that send to landfills is still rising. It is reported that many of them do recognize organic waste that sent to landfills might be environmental contaminative, but they don’t know what exactly landfilling organic waste will do to the environment. And another problem is that many people feel that they have no impact on the decision-making process, and as a result, they do not care about their waste disposal behaviors. So it is very important to make people feel like they can make a difference when it comes to these environmental problems or become involved in doing something about them.
Taking Japan’s practices of waste management as a successful example, Hong Kong education institutions can improve their education system towards environmental matters, in order to change the social behaviors of waste disposal and separation. Universities can set up more classes or lectures to educate students.
The success of a waste management program largely depends on public participation; thus holding activities/ events can be effective ways to improve the participation of the organic waste management.

References:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong 2014, Raising Awareness on Waste Minimisation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, viewed 20 June 2016, <http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/sustainability/en/our_work/campus/waste/raising-awareness.html&gt;.
Ministry of the Environment 2005, Japan’s experiment in promotion of the 3Rs, Ministry of the Environment, viewed 19 June 2016, <http://www.env.go.jp/recycle/3r/en/approach/02.pdf&gt;.
Ministry of the Environment 2014, History and current state waste management in Japan, Ministry of the Environment, viewed 19 June 2016, <http://www.env.go.jp/recycle/circul/venous_industry/en/history.pdf&gt;.
Moreton Bay 2015, Reducing your waste, viewed 20 June 2016, <https://www.moretonbay.qld.gov.au/general.aspx?id=101095&gt;.