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A collection bin for used clothes in Wan Chai. Photo: SCMP Pictures

'Buy Nothing Day' urges Hongkongers to shun shopping and fast-fashion to reduce textiles waste

Environmentalists urge Hongkongers to shun shopping and fast-fashion on 'Buy Nothing Day' to reduce city's mounting pile of clothing waste

Mok Ho-kwong has never had too much trouble deciding what to wear to work. His wardrobe consists of exactly nine T-shirts and three pairs of trousers, the oldest of which date back to his university days a decade ago.

Known by his Cantonese nickname "Wild Man", Mok hasn't bought a single piece of clothing in 10 years. He also farms his own food.

"The only T-shirt I actually had to 'pay' for is the one for the NGO I run, which I bought in bulk for a few dollars each," said Mok, in a soiled, donated shirt and hole-ridden plimsolls. "I stopped buying clothes when I realised that everything from production to disposal was so harmful for the environment."

He is not alone. Mok's ethos is being embodied in Buy Nothing Day today - an international day of protest against consumerism which originated in Canada and has been celebrated by cutting up credit cards and pushing around empty shopping carts.

While mainly targeted at over-consumption seen on days such as Black Friday in the United States, Greenpeace said the problem was just as bad in shopping-obsessed Hong Kong.

According to new analysis of the city's waste statistics by the group, Hongkongers dispose of 110,000 tonnes of textile garments each year - an amount that would fill 25,000 Hong Kong Stadium pitches. That is equivalent to 1,400 T-shirts being thrown out every minute. Per capita, it works out to about 15.3kg of clothing disposed of in a year, a weight equal to roughly 102 150g cotton T-shirts.

Only a small amount of these textiles are recovered for recycling and the rate has fallen threefold to just 3.9 per cent in the last five years. By contrast, the rate in Britain is 16 per cent and 15 per cent in the US.

"Part of the reason is a shrinking mainland market for used clothes as people get richer, but also the lack of local government support," said Greenpeace campaigner Bonnie Tang Man-lam.

"The government doesn't analyse these statistics or publish them online and as such, there is very little public awareness."

Although textiles only make up 3 per cent of municipal solid waste, there are very few government- or producer-led textile recycling schemes in the city. The government has published blueprints for reducing food and garden waste but not textiles.

Tang said textile waste was equally bad for the environment. Not only did it contain hazardous chemicals and heavy metals that could leak into groundwater, the average textile takes years to decompose, producing harmful greenhouse gases in the process.

Tang urged residents to consume wisely and environment officials to do more to reduce textile waste at the source.

An Environmental Protection Department spokesman said there were already companies recycling textiles without government support. The EPD maintained an open mind to using the recently launched HK$1 billion recycling fund to support more recycling of textiles, he said.

The Home Affairs Department has also been working with NGOs to collect used clothes via bins at residential estates since 2006.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Activists look to fashion a fix for textiles waste
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