Beginning of the End of Single-Use Plastic in 2025

Beaches have a lot of single-use plastic wash up on shore

 

The Hong Kong government is finally going to tackle single-use plastic -- but not until 2025. So while green groups are pleased the authorities are doing something about the serious problem, it's not fast enough.

Starting in 2025 restaurants need to offer more eco-friendly tableware for takeaway, and customers will need to bring their own food containers. The government will start by banning the sale of expanded polystyrene tableware, including disposable cups, cup lids and food containers to dine-in customers.

Many people have eaten from takeaway boxes

Catering premises would also be prohibited from offering throwaway cutlery, as well as disposable plastic straws, stirrers, cutlery or plates.

In the second phase, no restaurants can use single-use plastic for takeaway.

"Countless waste plastic enters the natural environment, including the ocean each year, Secretary for the Environment Wong Kam-sing wrote in the consultation document. "They will eventually be fragmented into microplastics and enter the human food chain."

According to figures from 2019, Hong Kong is estimated to be responsible for throwing away about 14.6 billion pieces of plastic cutlery annually, or about 1,940 pieces per person.

While officials wanted to cover all types of single-use plastic, pre-packaged food like drink boxes that come with straws will be exempted.

Ban on single-use plastics to start 2025

Environmental groups like Green Earth said the government's schedule ignored the immediacy and scale of the environmental threat posed by takeaway public cutlery, the volume of which had risen during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The NGO noted mainland China banned the production and sale of single-use EPS tableweare this year, while the European Union has required all member states to prohibit the use of food containers and cups made from the same materials in the catering industry by this year.

Greenpeace agreed with Green Earth's criticism and urged officials to speed up the implementation of the scheme. But World Green Organization felt the timeline was reasonable.

Regardless the environmental issues Hong Kong has needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Lots of education is needed to teach residents the importance of cutting down single-use plastics and begin to encourage customers to bring their own containers. Charging them HK$1 or HK$2 is not enough of an incentive.

The market has eco-friendly boxes, but are costly

The same goes for plastic shopping bags. It's mostly men who don't bring shopping bags with them, and don't mind paying HK$0.50 for a plastic bag to carry their things in.

Pushing restaurants to use alternative takeaway boxes will be a relief. Many small shops use polystyrene packaging which is shocking in this day and age, but they are purely looking at it from a cost perspective.

Because of the pandemic people are becoming more aware of how much garbage is being thrown away, though for others, as long as single-use plastics are disposed off, it's out of sight, out of mind.

In any event why is the government waiting four years for this change to happen? Why can't this be happening in a year or two the most? 

It is time to protect the environment. Now.