Best New SME Silver Award winner believes environmental protection should be kept simple

"In those days they didn't call it environmental protection, it was called bulk material handling,"said the manager of Waste & Environmental Technologies Ltd. and recipient of the Best New SME Silver Award.

But big environmental problems do not always require big solutions. In fact, the most practical answers are often the simplest, he said.

"There seems to be this misconception that you need big, expensive, one-project-can-do-all solutions for environmental problems,"he said.

One way he is disproving such misunderstandings is by designing and marketing simple, practical cures for old environmental headaches.

One such tonic is the company's bread-and-butter invention, a portable filtration system used mainly for construction sites. Besides being small, it is also cost-effective, and simple to operate and maintain.

"You have to remember that the people who are usually in charge of setting up and using equipment like this are only labourers. They don't know how to handle a sophisticated system. If they don't know how to operate it they, they just won't use it,"he said.

The system can also be used for dying industries, pig farmers or for any industries which need to separate solids from liquid, he said.

"Regarding our innovation we've brought out a lot new products,"Mr Leung said. "We're also going to collect waste plastic and turn it into reusable products. This post-consumer product is what we call ?egen' and a lot of factories have scrap regen. We pick it up and can turn it into products as diverse as garden furniture to marine piers."

Hong Kong now uses timber for its 90 or so landing piers, which need replacing about every four years. Using regen to make durable plastic beams instead of timber will help reduce the number of trees felled as well as save space in landfills. But it will also save a small fortune on timber and labour costs for replacing them.

If Mr Leung can convince the relevant authorities of the environmental and cost advantages of using regen, Hong Kong may become the second country in Asian after Japan to use regen for marine piers.

PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles ?the kind used for soft drinks ?will be removed from regen because it is the second most valuable recyclable product after aluminium, Mr Leung said.

Given the large volume of consumer waste Hong Kong produces, it may appear that its citizens are indifferent to the environment. But Mr Leung said in his experience, people care deeply about the environment.