With the Mid-Autumn Festival fast approaching, it’s mooncake season in Macao. And how do these traditional delicacies arrive? Most typically, in beautiful albeit single-use boxes.
To combat the waste all that cardboard and plastic has the potential to create, the Environmental Protection Bureau (known by its Portuguese initials DSPA) is setting up more than 1,000 mooncake box collection points across the city. These will be operational between 17 and 29 September.
The scheme is part of an annual DSPA campaign. “We hope that everyone will remember to protect the environment when celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival,” the bureau said in a statement.
[See more: Macao lags behind when it comes to household recycling]
The bureau has partnered with government departments, community associations, hotels, banks, businesses, schools and universities to set up the collection points. Their exact locations will be published on a dedicated webpage.
DSPA urged residents to fully empty their boxes before dropping them off at a convenient collection point. Staff from the bureau would later collect all the boxes to ensure they were properly recycled.
The day after the Mid-Autumn Festival is an obligatory public holiday in Macao, which this year falls on 18 September.
