From origin to the past, and now
History of the Hong Kong Drum
Founded in 1961, witness to Hong Kong's drum trade and its changing times.
Mainland Integration Efficient Shipping Recycling Fades
Mainland manufacturing makes chemical containers in huge, cheap volumes, and shipping is fast and easy. Hong Kong steadily uses fewer second-hand drums, 1000L tanks and metal drums; as local industries decline, even the most convenient 1000L tanks have no use. Mainland bans on reusing second-hand drums leave Hong Kong piling up waste drums, and the remainder goes to landfill as scrap.
Shopping Changed Joy and Sorrow
E-commerce — led by Taobao and other platforms — made new drums easier to buy. That is good for users but hard for us: with cheap new drums so available, people lost interest in buying old or second-hand drums.
E-Commerce Rises Easy Shopping
2017 saw the first version of this website. E-commerce was a mixed blessing: buyers of second-hand or reconditioned drums no longer had to ask around hardware shops — they could research and compare online and pay by PayMe, WeChat Pay or FPS, without a shop visit or even meeting in person. That was a major boost for our trade.
AFCD Backs Organic Farming
The government encouraged universities to research new farming and fishery technology in the Lok Ma Chau Loop, and young people to join research — including new growing methods.
Organic Farming Fallow Land Reborn
The government promoted cultivating abandoned New Territories land, drawing young people from the city back to nature. Organic farms multiplied — aquaponics, farmed gei wai shrimp, Yuen Long organic rice — so demand for plastic drums grew.
The Final Sprint
Deregulated transport, container terminals and open trade gave the recycling industry one last sprint, and it boomed for over a decade. The mainland needed scrap plastic, so Hong Kong's leftover industrial waste — plastic resin and waste drums — was shipped north. It was the last industrial rush for local drum recycling, and its end.
Virus Outbreak Bleach in Demand
Restaurants, banquet halls and hospitals needed huge amounts of bleach to fight SARS, so 25kg plastic containers soared — some prices multiplied. Poorly designed building drainage also drove demand, and property prices fell.
Illegal Waste-Oil A Brief Boom
The mainland wanted lard for reprocessing and used industrial oil drums to carry it — until the poisoned-lard scandal. New licences were then required and waste-oil recycling was centralised; drums carrying waste lard were banned. It was a brief golden moment for waste-oil recovery.
Waste-Oil Recycling Industry Rises
The food-service industry peaked — KFC, Fairwood, Tsui Hang Village, Maxim's, McDonald's. People loved deep-fried food, leaving vast amounts of waste oil. Many unlicensed waste-oil collectors appeared, needing huge numbers of fuel drums to hold it.
Industry Declines
Facing mainland production, brands made in Hong Kong faded — toys, watches, textiles, dyeing and even food service, as people headed north to spend.
Facing the Mainland
After the handover, many Hong Kong people invested north of the border and factories moved away, sharply cutting demand for chemical containers across industries.
Losses
Chemical drums hold chemical raw materials and must be cleaned, so the Environmental Protection Department restricted their use. Urban planning, space limits and environmental rules pushed every industry to use fewer chemical drums, making operations very difficult.
Gains
Demolishing resettlement blocks released huge amounts of asbestos, so countless empty metal drums were needed. Public housing was rebuilt and redeveloped; waste treatment — waste oil, oil residue, asbestos, waste lard — demanded empty drums. As environmental awareness grew, chemical drums came to be used with a liner bag inside, so they can be reused without washing.
Rising Green Awareness
Chemical drums began to decline. Stronger environmental protection regulated polluting industries that used chemicals — a cycle of rise and fall.
Organic Farming Aquaponics
60kg and 100kg drums became farm fertiliser buckets; 200L drums and 1000L tanks stored water for irrigation.
New Airport Industrial Peak
The new airport, industry and fuel depots needed huge numbers of empty fuel drums. Generator demand and site use of industrial diesel oil also soared.
Outdoor Activities Grow
Fish rafts grew into wooden raft water sports — fishing from the rafts — and drums were used for shooting games, including war games built around 200L plastic drums, 200L steel drums and 1000L tanks.
Fishery Booms
Banquet halls craved seafood, the fishery boomed and fish tubs spread — attracting many people to build fish rafts.
Food Service Booms
Tofu was first carried in kerosene tins; by the 80s–90s, 'packaged tofu' was packed in plastic drums. Restaurants and banquet halls flourished, and chemical drums sawn open and strung with rope became the famous lugged food-waste drums.
Construction Booms
Resettlement-block populations grew and public housing expanded endlessly, so sites needed huge numbers of metal drums — for example, drums rebuilt as troughs for concrete waste.
Times Change
Water was carried in kerosene tins in the 50s–60s; by the 80s–90s it was plastic Red A buckets, chemical drums, 1000L tanks, large drums and fuel drums — the everyday containers of factories.
The Golden Age
Industry took off and every kind of drum was in huge demand. Recycled drums supplied every trade — not just factories but restaurants, fish rafts, construction sites, food businesses and many more.
Entertainment's Golden Age
Kung-fu films and action movies created countless gunfight scenes and big productions needing steel and plastic drums as set dressing, indoors and out.
Remembering the Old
People in resettlement areas cooked with kerosene from tins. Hong Kong made no steel tins, so black flat plastic containers were used — until accidents showed they broke easily and caused fires; after 20 years steel tins replaced plastic for kerosene.
The 618 Rainstorm
Continuous rain caused landslides and loss of life, so the government began regulating private slope repairs. Roads and urban areas needed vast numbers of empty steel drums for barriers and concrete work — before plastic water tanks existed, steel drums took their place.
Chemical Drums Reused
A growing population and hygiene needs brought shampoo, hand soap and bleach into daily life and work. Recovered 25kg containers were refilled with detergent and bleach for barbershops, restaurants and building cleaning.
New Factory Demand
In the 70s Hong Kong textiles thrived — dyeing mills produced fabric in bulk — while electronics and watches drove plating factories. Leftover chemical drums piled up; Hong Kong made none, yet factories needed chemicals — dyes, softeners — more than ever. So drums were reused, circulating back into the factories.
New Needs
Factories were left with every kind of chemical drum. Owners hated waste and the cost of imported new drums — and no new drums were made locally anyway. So drum reuse was born: the era of recycled drum trading, upcycling and customising.
Chicken & Duck Trade
In the 50s–60s industry was quiet and steel drums were rare. After the 70s it took off: chemical plastic drums appeared and were converted for selling poultry and carrying fish to market.
Industry Thrives
Hong Kong factories flourished — electroplaters, dyers, oil companies, paint and hardware makers, food and oyster-sauce factories — each leaving chemical drums behind. Local container brands also began, including the famous Red A plastic ware.
Seven-Storey Blocks
After the Shek Kip Mei fire, squatter homes burned and were cleared, and people moved into seven-storey blocks — Hong Kong's first public housing. Denser, better-off communities revived festivals: the Chiu Chow ghost festival, rice distribution and good deeds. All of it needed metal drums as joss-paper burners — the famous 'hua bo' drums.
Water Rationing
Life in seven-storey resettlement blocks was hard. Water came every three days and there was no East River supply, so people stored and carried it in every kind of vessel — kerosene tins, wooden buckets, galvanised buckets, handmade drums and a few chemical drums.
Hawkers Given Space
With so many hawkers, the government allocated many 3ft x 3ft pitches. Hawkers needed plastic drums for water and cooking, and steel drums as stoves — demand for containers rose.
The 'Pig Cage' Van
Life was hard; hawkers were arrested every three days and taken away in police vans nicknamed 'pig cages'. Trips to the Sham Shui Po police station were routine. Hawkers sold drums and goods from the kerbside, and regulation made life tough for them and everyone.
Illegal Immigrants
After the Cultural Revolution, many mainland migrants came to Hong Kong illegally and settled in wooden hut areas and street-hawker districts. Poor communities gathered in Li Cheng Uk and Sham Shui Po squatter areas, attracting hawkers to the open drains of Nam Cheong Street.
Origin
Historical background photo credits
The photos below are sourced from Wikimedia Commons and are used only to evoke the era; they are not a record of Yik Kee's own history. Public domain photos may be used freely; CC BY-SA photos require attribution. See the links for details.
- 塱原農田 2014（復耕農地） — Wing1990hk（CC BY 3.0）
- 1963 制水排隊（水桶陣） — Colonial Government of Hong Kong（Public domain）
- 觀塘徙置區 1966 — —（Public domain）
- 1990 年代香港建築 — Alix Lee（Public domain）
- 1980 年代元洲街邨 — josenel（CC BY-SA 3.0）
- 貨櫃碼頭（葵涌 Kwai Chung） — Can Pac Swire（CC BY-SA 2.0）