Green quarantine? Hong Kong hotels under pressure to recycle plastics thrown out by guests spending weeks in Covid-19 isolation
- Experts caution against recycling items from rooms of quarantined guests, citing Covid-19 risk
- NGO The Green Earth estimates hotels have used at least 100 million plastic items during pandemic
They want authorities, hotels and even quarantined guests themselves to cut the use of plastic water bottles, disposable utensils, tableware and toiletries, and try to do more to recycle.
But some medical experts cautioned against sending items from quarantine hotel rooms into the community, citing the risk of spreading the coronavirus.
The Green Earth, a charity that has focused on plastic waste since 2016, estimated that at least 100 million such items had been used at quarantine hotels since the pandemic began last year.
Hahn Chu Hon-keung, a director of the group, said that assuming all 86,282 travellers quarantined so far had spent 14 days in a hotel, at least 120,000 water bottles and 13 million plastic items such as food containers and cutlery were used every month. Some in fact stayed 21 days.
