Letters | Big Hong Kong firms must do more to cut plastic pollution
- Thoughtfully designed products for the times can help maintain the brands they worked so hard to create, in a world with new rules, visibility and consumers who care
A Science article published last month suggests that, without significant new system changes by corporate and government stakeholders, there could be up to three times the amount of plastic in our ocean by 2040, or over 29 million metric tons per year, which is the equivalent to 50kg per metre of coastline.
Unfortunately, Hong Kong does not have a strong reputation for recycling, nor producer responsibility. With its “free market”, and few regulations that make large environmental impacts, companies have been allowed to put any type of product and packaging into the market. The cost and responsibility is put on the shoulders of the government’s limited recycling capacities. Trust in their effectiveness was lost long ago, with the statistics to match.
No one, however, has mentioned their green bottle caps, which are award-winning for design, but carry a big impact on the environment, in terms of size and plastic content per cap. It has five to 15 times as much plastic as other caps, as per a study by the University of Hong Kong.