Abacus | Recycling a hedge fund makes me wonder: will Hong Kong’s environment survive all the ‘fresh starts’?

It’s high time big corporations took the lead in the recycling effort

Neil Newman takes his own advice while shutting down a hedge fund, and learns much about our attitude to previously used goods in the process

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Published: 8:00am, 1 Feb 2021Updated: 8:18am, 1 Feb 2021

ONE CAREFUL OWNER

Living in Hong Kong, you’d be forgiven if respect for the environment is not the first thing that comes to mind when you’re asked to describe the city. Although I’m not sure our attitude towards ditching things is much different from other parts of Asia that have gone through a booming period of growth into a mature economy. Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, all the Asian Tigers have had to deal with the polluted aftermath of their growth.

Japan’s growth largely took place in the 1950s, 60s, and even into the 80s when I first went there. The hangover from the party: lousy air, polluted rivers and seas, disused cars and machinery dumped roadside while consumption and the status of owning the latest consumer goods remained a national pastime. For a nation that prides itself in appreciation of natural beauty and respect for nature it was the height of hypocrisy.

Fast forward 40 years and there is a very different Japanese view: a nation obsessed with recycling everything. Industry has largely cleaned up, and now sweet, clean air is the norm, even in Kawasaki, once famous for its steel, oil and transport equipment industries. Aside from the Fukushima incident, Japan generally has clean rivers and seas. I haven’t seen a dumped car in some years.

The Japanese haven’t solved everything, and there has been a certain amount of “sweeping under the carpet” by shipping out non-recyclable waste to dump around Asia, but there is an ongoing effort to change that.

Scrap plastic collected at a recycling factory in Lung Kwu Tan, Hong Kong. Photo: Jonathan Wong