Is Hong Kong doing enough to limit plastic pollution? Supermarkets and other food vendors are slow to reduce single-use plastic use, and alternatives can’t compete

Most of the plastic rubbish that turns up or washes up on Hong Kong beaches ‘is what you can usually find in the supermarket’, a clean-up volunteer says

The coronavirus pandemic spurred use of single-use plastics, and while some businesses have acted, only small steps towards banning them have been taken

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June Wong So-kwan picks up plastic waste on Hong Kong’s beaches, but is the city doing enough to reduce the amount of plastic that washes into the ocean? Photo: Jonathan Wong

Published: 7:15am, 1 Oct 2021Updated: 7:24am, 1 Oct 2021

June Wong So-kwan picks up plastic takeaway cups and boxes, bottles, wrappers and containers on her regular rubbish collection trips to Hong Kong’s beaches.

“When I do beach clean-ups in Hong Kong, I find a lot of these kinds of wrappers, the prepack containers,” she says. “This is what you can usually find in the supermarket. I think it’s a very big issue.”

One of many volunteers who patrol the coast in their spare time, the manager for marine pollution at WWF-HK collects the trash in an attempt to keep the city’s beaches clean and to prevent plastic rubbish from floating out to sea. It’s a never-ending task.

Almost everything in Hong Kong’s two dominant supermarket chains, Wellcome and ParknShop – which together have hundreds of outlets as well as online grocery delivery services – is packed, boxed, wrapped or double-wrapped in single-use plastic.

Wong collects rubbish from a beach near WWF Island House in Tai Po, in Hong Kong’s New Territories. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Some of the plastic seems entirely redundant: toilet rolls are individually wrapped and sold with other rolls in a larger bag, boxes of canned drinks are wrapped in plastic, and vegetables and fruit are packaged in boxes or bags.

Despite persistent complaints from the environmental lobby, the supermarket titans have done little to rein in their appetite for single-use plastic. Wellcome did not respond to repeated queries, but a spokeswoman for ParknShop says steps are being taken; she added, however, that the safety, functionality and affordability of packaging had to be considered.