4C Chong Yue Shing Tommy
A Letter to the Editor – An Environmental Issue
Dear Editor,
I am writing to express my opinion on the issue of people overusing plastic umbrella covers. Whenever it rains, shopping malls and public community always prepare an endless supply of plastic umbrella covers to shoppers or visitors. The users usually throw the covers away afterwards. Although these plastic umbrella covers are beneficial to people and the shopping malls or community centres, it undoubtedly brings harm to the environment. Hence, I am here to give some suggestions to ease the problem.
To commerce with, plastic umbrella covers are convenient because they can be disposed easily and free to use. They are used to contain all the water to prevent the floor from getting wet on rainy days. And they are ubiquitous, so they are widely used by the public.
But their damage to the environment must not be ignored. Most importantly, plastic umbrella covers are harmful to nature, and they are choking landfills. Plastic is non-biodegradable and it takes thousands of years for plastic to decompose. Other than that, once the landfill is saturated, there will not be any place for us to dispose our trash as there is insufficient of land in Hong Kong.
As we all know, shopping malls offer customers or visitors plastic umbrella covers for free to prevent their facilities and floors from getting wet. To solve such a problem, we can use other alternatives such as floor-drying machines, umbrella dryers. They are easily installed at the entrance. If everyone uses umbrella dryer, no plastic umbrella freebies will be given. Some people may say it will bring inconvenience to the public, but it is worth doing so – to save our Earth.
If shopping malls and public community can reduce the use of plastic umbrella covers, this will definitely lessen the pressure of choking landfills. I sincerely hope that what I have suggested can raise the public awareness of protecting the environment. Everyone should shoulder the responsibility to our living place!
Yours faithfully,
Pat Chan
Kwai Chung