Hong Kong's very real plastic problem
Anna Beech argues that Hong Kong must clean up after itself, by reducing use and recycling where possible, to deal with its mounting plastic waste
We consume plastic like it's an infinite resource but it's not. Our everyday lives are covered in plastic - our foods, drinks, medicine, cars, clothes, furniture; the list is long, and growing. We've lost respect for plastic, a human engineering marvel that has become a huge problem.
In Hong Kong, we have reached crisis point. We produce 1,700 tonnes of plastic waste every day yet we don't have the infrastructure to deal with it. Instead, we ship it across the border to recycling plants on the mainland.
But, already, mainland China is beginning to impose tougher policies on such imports to reduce pollution from poorly run recycling operations.
Hong Kong requires a three-pronged approach - build the infrastructure to deal with the city's own waste; reduce the consumption of plastic in the first place; and create a policy environment that gives consumers and the private sector incentives to treat plastic like the precious resource it is.
First, business. It has no obligation to address this problem, but there are expectations and a growing number of examples of companies finally stepping up. Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Nike and Heinz, for example, are taking much-needed steps to reduce their plastic footprints.
Since 1994, Coca-Cola has reduced the weight of its plastic bottles by 38.5 per cent, and in 2011, it introduced the PlantBottle packaging that is 100 per cent recyclable. A Nike campaign made all the football World Cup jerseys for the 2010 South Africa games out of 100 per cent recycled polyester, with each jersey taking eight plastic bottles out of landfills. The project alone stopped 13 million plastic bottles ending up in landfills.