Talking trash: plastic waste treaty talks spur hope for Asia’s circular economy
- Asia accounts for a big portion of all plastic produced annually, with Hong Kong and South Korea among the highest per capita producers, and China topping the list
- Global negotiators are to begin crafting a draft treaty to curb the use of plastic, but environmentalists say we need to create a lot less of it in the first place
“My friend said, welcome to Hong Kong! Our waters are really polluted,” said Parker, vividly recalling the 2014 incident.
It left such a deep imprint that he would go on to create Circular City, a technology platform enabling cafes to lend steel coffee cups to customers who borrow them for free, and earn reward points when they are returned.
“When I was growing up I went to the beach and played with crabs and shells. When my two-year-old son grows up in Hong Kong, it really frustrates me that he plays with bits of plastic among the shells,” said Parker.
Since his firm’s launch in 2020 – with the help of HK$1 million (US$127,500) in grants from the Hong Kong government – 10,000 of his steel cups have been used, meaning that number of disposable cups were not added to the city’s landfill. Around a million are added daily.
Parker’s firm has started generating revenue and he has stopped teaching to focus on it. Now, with world leaders discussing a treaty on plastic waste, he is optimistic about scaling up.