Hong Kong is teemed with rubbish bins of all sorts, totalling 42,000 in 2014 – meaning one for every 172 people and 10 times more than Seoul. Such abundance has drawn Louis Chung and Tom Hui, both in their early 20s, to keep a record of these bins across the city and share their trail of trash cans on Instagram.

Chung’s unusual interest in waste containers can be dated back to his childhood walks, where he always noticed a purple rubbish bin on his way home from school every day. He recalls, “I saw that bin as my childhood companion.” Growing up, he has taken pictures of every rubbish bin he spotted, before partnering with his design school classmate Hui to develop their final year project based on the subject. His enthusiasm has grown even greater after completing the project and now his current goal is to publish a photo album exclusively of local waste containers.

“Rubbish bins in Hong Kong have evolved with the times. Their designs have changed alongside the city’s social and political development,” says Chung. The first public waste container was introduced in 1948 as public hygiene became a huge urban concern after the cholera pandemic. This first-generation cuboid bin made from iron was later redesigned by the Urban Council into a purple cylindrical container in a bid to minimize pedestrian injury during typhoons. When the council was disbanded, the purple bins were replaced with orange ones, currently the most common type in Hong Kong.

These orange rubbish bins, now made with fiberglass, used to have larger openings. In line with the “polluter pays” policy, the government redesigned the litter containers in 2016, reducing their openings from 370 mm x 190 mm to 230 mm x 150 mm. “It aimed to prevent people who were reluctant to pay waste disposal fees from discarding huge refuse into public bins, while discouraging pedestrians from creating more wastes,” Hui explains.

The orange bins on the streets belong to the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and make up most of the existing 20,000 rubbish bins in Hong Kong. There are also green and yellow bins, which are owned by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and often found in parks, sports venues and beaches. When smoking was banned across restaurants, all public indoor places and some public outdoor areas such as parks in 2007, the LCSD removed the ashtrays from its rubbish bins. However, one can still find burnt cigarette marks on top of the yellow and green bins.

Following the use of rubbish bins as makeshift roadblocks by some protesters during the pro-democracy demonstrations triggered by the extradition bill, the government began in late 2019 replacing the rubbish bins with the highly unpopular hanging litter bags. Hui explains why these bags have drawn widespread criticism. “Not only can the trash be blown away from the uncovered bags, the thin bag can easily be pierced through and broken by glass or sharp objects, causing leaks of liquid wastes such as soy sauce or chili oil from disposed food.” That said, the litter bag is not all bad after all. Compared to the previous two-layer cylindrical bins that weigh 18 pounds each, the bags composed of plastic sheets are much lighter, making garbage collection for cleaners much easier.

While most rubbish bins in Hong Kong are made by inmates in jail, some are imported overseas. Transparent litter bags, also known as anti-terrorism bags, are imported from Britain. They are widely seen at train stations, airports and venues in major world cities such as Paris, London and Taipei. Hui says these bin bags were introduced following the Tokyo subway sarin attack in 1995, so as to minimize the disposal of dangerous substances in public places. “The government has learnt a lesson and removed public rubbish bins. But at major train and bus stations where waste containers are necessary, clear litter bags are put in place so that people can immediately report any suspicious object in the bins to the police.”

The British manufacturer of bin-alternative bags also produces Hong Kong’s much-loved animal-shaped rubbish bins, which are mostly found in public parks and housing estates. While frog and dolphin characters can still be found in Ma Tau Wai Estate, these eye-catching waste collection points have become increasingly rare in the city now.

Chung recalls a surge in popularity of rubbish bins in the ’70s as the colonial government decreed more of them during its Clean Hong Kong Campaign. “The campaign not only aimed to educate people not to dump waste randomly on the streets, it served to promote rodent control and household hygiene as well,” says Chung. The campaign has also introduced a number of mascots, including the famous, beloved Lap Sap Chung, a representative cartoon litter bug. “Miss Ping On (literally translates as “Miss Safe”) was the first-generation mascot that came before Lap Sap Chung and its lesser-known partner Miss Super Clean. Keep Clean Ambassador Ah Tak was presented later.”

The rubbish bin fan sees these generations of waste containers as life companions of Hongkongers. “Little kids like to take the bin’s opening as a goal and aim at tossing trash into it. Grown-ups smoke around a litter container, comparing it to eating ‘hotpot.’ Elderlies often turn to litter collecting and recycling for extra cash due to lack of social welfare,” Chung continues. “In this way, a rubbish bin is a witness to people’s lives through the years.”

Though rubbish bins have become a unique feature integrated in the city’s landscape, it remains uncertain whether these containers will continue to exist amid social progress towards a more environmentally conscious future. While Hui welcomes the day when the garbage containers will disappear along with urban waste, Chung believes the fate of these rubbish bins largely lies in the hands of the government. As long as these rubbish bins exist, he is happy to do something meaningful with his friend – visually recording the litter containers as well as the evolution of social fabric of the city.

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