In the fight against marine pollution, Hong Kong dragon boat paddlers join forces

The ‘Paddle without Plastic’ campaign is aiming to reduce plastic waste in dragon boat training and race events

40 teams are expected to take part, resulting in more than 500 dragon boaters committing to changing their habits

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Millions of tonnes of plastic waste enter the world’s oceans each year, with much of it washing up on beaches. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Published: 5:00pm, 8 Mar 2019Updated: 12:53pm, 14 May 2019

Dragon boat racing has a long history. Its roots stretch back 2,500 years, to when fishing communities along the Yangtze River in southern China engaged in the activity to appease the rain gods and celebrate the summer rice planting. Today, though, the motivation is less folk ritual and more of a fun way to get fit.

In Hong Kong, it is also being used as a platform to raise awareness about marine pollution with the launch this weekend of “Paddle without Plastic”, a campaign that invites paddlers, sponsors and festival organisers to reduce plastic waste in training and race events.

Launched to coincide with the start of the city’s dragon boat season (which runs until the end of July), the campaign has been backed by Hong Kong pop star Jolie Chan and diver and ghost-net hunter Harry Chan.

It has attracted teams from Lamma Island, Lantau Island and Hong Kong Island who have pledged to ban single-use plastic bottles and food containers.

Paddlers from the Green Dragons HK boat crew, the crew behind the “Paddle without Plastic” campaign, with their reusable bottles.

“We’re confident to reach 40 teams this year,” says Suzanne Younan, founder of Green Dragons HK, the boat crew behind the campaign. “This results in more than 500 paddlers committing to changing their habits and raising awareness about marine pollution. That’s a great win for our community and for the planet.

“If you consider that each team trains twice a week with 25 paddlers during 15 weeks of the season, this is 30,000 bottles that will not be added to the 5.2 million single-use plastic bottles entering the Hong Kong waste system every day,” she adds, referring to figures released in 2017 by Hong Kong-based environmental group The Green Earth. “Hong Kong dragon boat teams are coming together as one community to fight single-use plastic. They’re overcoming their competitive instinct to be stronger together, to lead by example and make a difference to the ocean and Hong Kong beaches.”