Zero Waste Week: can Hong Kong rise to the challenge?

Every day, Hong Kong disposes of 9,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste. If we carry on at that pace, experts say, by 2019 our landfills will be land-fulls.

Enter Lisa Christensen and Nissa Marion, co-founders of Hong Kong Cleanup and Ecozine, who are pioneering the city’s first Zero Waste Week campaign – a citywide challenge to reduce the amount of rubbish sent to landfills from today until June 14.

They are encouraging individuals, offices, businesses and schools to make a pledge to reduce waste.

“We aim to inspire action at the personal, business and policy level, to reduce the amount of waste we produce,” says Christensen, adding that people should try to create sustainable lifestyles by recycling discarded resources.

Participants can make a difference by not using disposable plastic bags, setting up composting heaps for food waste or simply sending nothing to the landfills for a week.

The organisers’ target is to engage more than 250,000 participants and reduce the amount of waste going to landfills by 10 per cent.