Inside Out | Hong Kong’s belated effort to curb plastic pollution must lead to action this time
- Like in most parts of the world, plastics in Hong Kong are becoming the stuff of environmental nightmares
- A public consultation focuses on the problem at source: producers of plastic beverage containers are asked to take responsibility for curbing waste, alongside consumer-focused initiatives
Like in most parts of the world, plastics in Hong Kong are becoming the stuff of environmental nightmares. Since the world began producing plastics at scale about 70 years ago, they have come to epitomise the dire, unsustainable heart of the Anthropocene, the era in which humans have assumed the power to change the world before recognising the implications. With the fossil fuels that are dangerously lifting global temperatures, we have celebrated the benefits they bring without giving adequate thought to the embedded harm that must be managed.
Plastic production has soared from 2 million tonnes a year in 1950 to more than 400 million tonnes a year today. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in a September 2018 report estimated that just 9 per cent of the 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic waste generated since 1950 has been recycled, with 12 per cent incinerated and about 80 per cent left to accumulate in landfills, or to drift remorselessly into our oceans.
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