Green activists happy to pick up the pieces after Occupy protests
Small but dedicated band collect the mountains of rubbish left by the Occupy movement, and recycle what they can to help the environment
With their bare hands, Celia Fung Sze-lai and her friends spend hours shredding foam lunch boxes into small flakes at the Occupy area outside the legislature. They then stuff the pieces into bags to make pillows for protesters still camping in Admiralty.
"No worries, the boxes have all been cleaned. But there might still be traces of grease left behind," she quipped.
Since the movement began more than two months ago, Fung and her friends have dropped in a few times a week. They are not there to protest, but to protect - the environment, that is.
The international media highlighted how disciplined the Hong Kong protesters had been about clearing their rubbish, but Fung belongs to a small, behind-the-scenes army of volunteers that also deserves credit.
They know that in a movement which involved more than 100,000 people on the streets at one point, not everybody was as civic-minded about their litter.
This is where Fung and company come in. She remembers the night after the tear gas incident on September 28. Fung observed the melee quietly from a distance. When the crowd retreated, the remains of that fateful night were hers for the sorting and clearing.
