While Hong Kong was recovering from torrential downpours and a super typhoon from only the day before - highly unusual for the height of autumn at the end of October - a group of buoyant volunteers gathered in a post-war industrial building in Kennedy Town where the ground-floor entrance was a loading bay for trucks, and the hand-operated goods lifts were the only way up. The security guard might have seemed slightly puzzled, but nonetheless unperturbed, as more than 70 people of all ages, some looking slightly lost, drifted in over the course of this Saturday morning. They were all going to take part in Kindness Mats, an event organized by Jeff Rotmeyer, the founder of ImpactHK.

The mission was simple: to turn plastic bags, which would have otherwise been thrown away, into sleeping mats for homeless people. The mats would act as a layer between their existing cardboards or mattresses and the wet ground. A great idea that would kill two birds with one stone.

Why Kindness Mats?

Spurred by low costs and a huge demand for convenience, Hong Kong has a highly consumerist and throw-away culture and produces a lot of waste as a result. In 2014 alone, 466 tons of plastic bags were sent to landfill every day as domestic waste. A back-of-the-envelope calculation* shows that it would have only taken roughly 74 days to cover the whole of Hong Kong if we laid these bags out flat! The number of plastic bags used/consumed was probably even higher, given that "waste sent to landfill" only accounted for 63% of the total waste, with the other 37% recycled. Hopefully, these kinds of figures won't be as shocking since the government's levy scheme on plastic bags came into full effect on 1 April 2015, but don't hold your breath.

Meanwhile, according to the Society for Community Organisation (SoCO), "Hong Kong housing is the world's least affordable for the 6th consecutive year", as the average housing price is now almost 20 times the median income. Their recent photo exhibition, entitled Trapped, only shows a snippet of a deep and pervasive problem. It seems that no one, not even the government, knows what to do about it. The corollary of this is that more people are being forced out onto the streets, or wherever they can spend the night without too much disturbance. "McSleepers" or "McRefugees" are real terms coined for homeless people who sleep at 24-hour outlets such as McDonald's.

The whole idea of Kindness Mats is, therefore, simple yet beautiful. Not only does it help the environment by repurposing and upcycling a waste product, it is also a fantastic social project that raises awareness, brings people together in a purposeful environment and directly benefits the homeless community.

So, how does it work?

Based on the Stephanie Lewis's video, the first step was to make "yarn" balls from plastic bags by folding them neatly and cutting them into strips, which became hoops when folded back out (the two ends of the plastic bag had to be discarded as they do not make closed hoops). For a typical shopping bag, the strips should be about one inch in width, but less if the plastic material was thicker or stronger. The hoops were then linked together by looping them end-to-end and rolled into a yarn ball. While half of the volunteers were getting on with this preparation, the other half, the crocheting team, were weaving the yarn balls into beautiful mats – a process I cannot find words to describe; it just happened quickly, magically and beautifully.

The preparers

Photo credit: Hannah Chung

I was determined to take part and learn about the whole process, so I started on the cutting and looping work. My handcrafting skills were also tested when I was asked to carve extra crochets using a cutter knife and wooden chopsticks. After several failed attempts, I did manage to make a few. They may not have been the most beautiful crochets, but they were functional (just). I then spent the remaining time learning how to crochet. Admittedly, after almost three hours of crocheting, as everyone else seemed to have made a decent mat or half-mat, I only managed two layers in width, which looked more like a "wonky ponytail". I was reassured that my work would not go to waste and the wonky ponytail would be combined with someone else's mat, eventually.

Making a yarn ball from plastic bags

Kindness Mats - Team Crocheters

Photo credit: Hannah Chung

The atmosphere was lively and buzzing throughout the day, particularly in the softly lit, ambient background of the art studio Dream Like Bubbles. For me, it was a great day of learning, socializing and sharing experiences. By about 3.30pm when we had to vacate the venue, we already had two and a half almost-finished mats, many balls of yarn and lots of still high-spirited volunteers! Jeff suggested that we should make a few more mats first before handing them out, and we would reconvene in two months time to allow people time to collect more plastic bags, and also any keen crocheter to continue weaving away at home.

And the impact?

Thinking about it, isn't this quite similar to Interface's Net-Works program? Net-Works benefits fishing communities by paying them to collect discarded fishing nets, which helps the marine environment; the nylon nets are then repurposed and upcycled to make new carpets. Kindness Mats is quite similar in many respects, with the environment and a section of the underprivileged community as the benefactors.

Could there be synergy between the two programs? Are there any other "waste" materials or products that can be repurposed and upcycled to tackle other societal problems?

Granted, the process of Kindness Mats is labour-intensive and the end product may only alleviate a minuscule element of the homeless' daily struggles, but it is surely the goodwill – all the time, effort and kindness that went into producing each mat – that will have a lasting positive impact not only on the homeless people but also on the volunteers who contributed. The realization that all hard work that went into making the mats does not even remotely measure up to the hardship many of the homeless people have the endure, is immensely humbling. For those of us who are fortunate enough to have a decent shelter in a metropolis that can often seem unforgiving, our kindness and empathy are one small way we can offer our gratitude.

Apart from Kindness Mats, ImpactHK tackles and alleviates poverty in Hong Kong by organizing twice-weekly meet-ups where volunteers buy food and drinks, or supermarket vouchers, to hand out to different homeless communities in person. If you are interested in taking part, do sign up and join their Facebook group where weekly events are announced.

*assume each bag is on average the same size as a supermarket shopping bag and weighs 8 grams

An almost-finished mat