News Questions (2)

Newspaper clipping :

Plastic bags topped the list of debris collected during a recent coastal cleanup, indicating that the 50 HK cents bag levy is doing little to curb their usage .The International Coastal Cleanup - an annual event coordinated by the Green Council and involving 14,000 volunteers from schools, companies and community groups - cleaned up 43 beaches from July 16 to November 11. They removed more than 57 tonnes of refuse from the territory's shorelines. Among the trash collected were 7,645 pieces of plastic, which topped this year's list. This was followed by 5,883 Styrofoam pieces and 4,468 bits of canvas.

The proportion of plastic bags collected also increased from 9 percent of total refuse in 2010 to 12.5 percent this year.Green Council chief executive Linda Ho Wai-ping said: "Marine debris, ranging from used plastic shopping bags to abandoned fishing nets, has become one of the most common hazards to the marine environment that threatens the ecosystem and human health."She is concerned about the increasing amount of plastic bags found on the shorelines, indicating that the plastic bag levy has limited impact. As the levy scheme does not cover all retailers, there are still hundreds of stores that distribute plastic bags to customers. Ho believes that extending the scheme to all retailers may cut the use of plastic bags.She urged the government to do more by educating the public to reduce the environmental impact of plastic bags.Ho Kin-chung, dean of the School of Science and Technology at the Open University of Hong Kong, warned that health may be affected as people can absorb toxic substances when consuming fish that feed on plastic bags.Ocean Park Conservation Foundation deputy director Timothy Ng Sau-kin said turtles may eat the bags thinking they are jellyfish.

Question :

(2) What were the top three types of rubbish collected during the cleannup event mentioned in the news ?