Discarded casino cards dealt a new hand as recycled paper
發佈日期: 2025-06-04 20:00
TVB News
In Macao, discarded playing cards dealt a new hand as recycled paper.
This as a local start-up is working on a green solution to upcycle the tens of tonnes of cards casinos throw away every day.
Macao is known for its gambling industry, boasting some 30 casinos of all sizes across the city.
With thousands of gaming tables here, just how many cards are used every day?
Some environmental advocates estimate Macao's six major gaming operators tossed away 15,000 tonnes of playing cards last year.
Given each deck weighing about 80 to 90 grammes, that's nearly 500,000 decks of playing cards discarded every day.
At Macao's gaming expo, experts demonstrate how card games are played. To prevent cheating at games like blackjack, once dealt, the cards will not be reused.
This environmental advocate said burning the playing cards will result in carbon dioxide emission and worsen global warming, so they hope to upcycle them into useful, or even beautiful paper product.
University of Macau has set up a renewable lab to study ways to recycle playing cards.
Its project researcher said the cards come with a plastic layer on both sides with a piece of cardboard in the middle.
Casino-grade cards even contain RFID chips embedded in the centre for security checking.
Researchers in the lab start by putting water into a beaker, then adding shredded playing cards.
A machine is activated to separate the paper from the plastic.
The pulp is then extracted, filtered and dried.
After about 10 minutes, out comes the recycled paper.
The team hopes when the technology matures, it can set up a recycling plant capable of repurposing all of Macao's discarded casino playing cards into new, reusable materials.
