Businesses and environmental groups come together to tackle Hong Kong’s waste issue
Drink Without Waste formed to discuss how to reduce pollution caused by plastic and cardboard drinks packaging
Each day, 136 tonnes of plastic bottles, 91 tonnes of cardboard drinks packaging, 41 tonnes of aluminium cans and 275 tonnes of glass bottles are thrown away in Hong Kong.
Many of them end up in landfill sites or polluting the wider environment, and the sight of empty plastic bottles washed up on the shores of pristine beaches is all too familiar.
As a result, a cross-sector working group including drinks manufacturers, green NGOs and waste management organisations has been launched to tackle the problem.
Drink Without Waste is the first of its kind that involves stakeholders from across the board, and will initially focus on reducing waste from single-use drinks packaging.
This is particularly crucial for drinks packaging made of plastic and multilayered cardboard, since the government has not yet set up a comprehensive recycling system for these materials, unlike for glass and aluminium.
The group plans to release its first report in 2018, after six months of research and consultations with experts, stakeholders and the wider community. It hopes to come up with solutions that are not single-handedly focused on reducing consumption, but on cutting waste as a whole in line with the government’s environmental aims, according to group member Steven Molyneux-Webb of the local green think tank Civic Exchange.