Keung made her first trip to Shaanxi Province, in Northwest China, in 2012, where she witnessed environmental pollution. She noticed, firsthand, haphazard dumping of used medical supplies and pesticides in the largest tributary of the Yellow River.
In 2014, a Fulbright scholarship gave Keung the opportunity to visit China for 10 months, where she became aware of the extent of China’s rural pollution and the contributing factors. She decided to focus her research in China around this issue.
Keung and her team are providing training for women’s groups on safe methods of recycling agricultural, chemical and medical wastes, implementing a pilot programme that tracks waste from points of purchase to storage, usage and disposal. Village doctors and farm suppliers will also receive training on recycling and treatment of waste and will develop a waste inventory system that they will pilot themselves.