Wild Boar Culling Continues

A baby wild boar rummaging through garbage for food

It is disturbing to find the Hong Kong government still insists on culling wild boars in "black spots" that show no fear and pose a risk to humans.

The head of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said on Sunday that it has "humanely handled" 28 animals since the policy was introduced last month to euthanise problem boars.

"We have captured and humanely handled boars in five out of more than 60 black spots," Leung Siu-fai said on Sunday.

AFCD should advise how to deal with wild boars

The "capture and kill" policy for wild boars sparked an outcry from animal activists, calling on the government to reverse its strategy and instead step up its neutering program. They believe only a small fraction of boars have been neutered.

Yet Leung said the department would continue its operations at black spots.

"We will continue our strategy to protect the public's safety. That means we will continue to capture boars which appear regularly, are not afraid of people, and even pose a safety risk at black spots," he said.

"We will also, if there are referral cases, report on boars going to urban areas, and we will assess if they pose a risk, and if they do, we will also capture and remove them."

How will the officials be able to identify those that wander into urban areas more often than others? Do they have them all tracked? And where are these "black spots"? How about telling the public where they are so that they are more cautious next time?

Activists condemn capturing and killing boars

Leung also said there would be more efforts made to dissuade people from feeding boars and improve the design of garbage bins.

How about launching a large-scale education campaign on why people should not feed wild boars, and what they should do if they encounter these animals. The AFCD should also continue to neuter ones they capture to control the population.

The AFCD did a study two years ago and estimated there were from 1,800 to 3,300 wild boars in the countryside areas. According to a spokesman, the animals are naturally wary of humans, so it is rare they will attack people.

Why is the government so insistent on killing these animals when it is humans that are encroaching on their environment?

Picture of the Day: Green Star Ferry

Another gorgeous evening from the Star Ferry pier

Last night I took the Star Ferry home from Tsim Sha Tsui and noticed a sign inside the vessel.

This sign caught my eye boarding the Star Ferry

It said:”Green Star Ferry. You have boarded the first low-emission Green Ferry running daily service in Hong Kong, equipped with diesel-electric propulsion system.”

Indeed! Gone were the big puffs of black smoke from the chimney, and hearing the motor lumbering along, like a tired work horse.

Instead Morning Star was quiet and smooth, and environmentally friendly!

Morning Star was retrofitted with the diesel-electric propulsion system and relaunched back into service in July 2020. 

Great to see another green initiative in HK

The diesel powered generators supply electricity to drive through propulsion engine. There are two smaller generators that power the lighting and ventilation.

Hope more of the Star Ferries will switch to this system to be more sustainable in the long run.

Help Save the Sparrows

There aren't as many Eurasian Tree Sparrows around in HK

 

According to the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society, the city's sparrow population has dropped by around 30 percent in the past five years.

In May the group counted 211,100 Eurasian Tree Sparrows, the lowest figure since 305,000 were spotted in the first annual survey in 2016.

They easily adjust to living in urban areas

Pang Chun-chiu, an ornithologist with the society, said further studies needed to be carried out to find out why there has been such a drastic decline, but says it could be due to a lack of nesting space and food shortages.

"They nest in crevices which used to be abundant in a modern city like Hong Kong... [so] the glass [facades] of the buildings might reduce the nesting spaces for sparrows," he said.

Pang explained the decline of the sparrow population might also reflect a worsening urban environment in Hong Kong.

"Sparrows are a tough species, actually. They adapt to changes very quickly, and they eat a wide range of food -- from plant seeds, insects to human leftover food. There might be something getting worse here which is affecting the sparrow population," he said.

In order to protect the birds, he called on people to help, adding residential areas are their favourite spots.

For example, people should not disturb sparrows if they see them making nests in buildings during their breeding season between March and June.

They feed on seeds, insects, and also human food

It's also possible a number of the birds have died or been seriously injured from crashing into glass buildings that confuse them, though one would think they would still be able to find food with Hong Kong's garbage situation not sorted yet.

There is also the possibility of the sparrows suffering from bacterial and viral infections that can cause the failure of eggs to hatch or nesting mortality.

Hopefully these birds can be helped along to increase their survival in the coming years. These sparrows are part of the ecosystem and help with pollination, crucial for flowers, plants, trees and crops.

Gov'ts Half-Hearted Attempt to Cut Plastic Containers, Cutlery

Polyfoam boxes will be banned from 2025 in Hong Kong

 

Hong Kong is a disposable city -- things are easily thrown in the garbage here without much thought. Even though the plastic bag surcharge in place, people don't mind paying 50 cents for it because they didn't think to bring a bag with them. Food in takeaway boxes are mostly in styrofoam containers from local food outlets because they can't afford to pay more for cardboard boxes, but those are lined with plastic so they can't be recycled.

However, the government is now putting its foot down and banning all disposable plastic to start in 2025 -- but not providing much of a roadmap let alone solutions for eateries, who are left scrambling to figure it out on their own.

Fast-food restaurants need to pivot faster

The only plan is a two-step ban. First is banning the sale and use of disposable expanded polystyrene tableware, basically the ubiquitous white foam takeaway boxes, and eateries cannot offer throwaway tableware (disposable plates, cutlery, straws and stirrers).

In the second phase, eateries cannot provide dine-in customers with disposable cups, cup lids or food containers.

What the government should be doing is putting the onus on the consumer to realize they need to change their eating habits and bring their own food containers to restaurants to eat, or take home leftovers. It would also force fast food restaurants like McDonald's to hire dishwashers who are already scarce.

Not enough people consider bringing their own mugs to coffee shops, let alone carry their own food containers to takeaway food and their own cutlery.

Garbage like this was 200 tonnes in 2019

In 2019 Hongkongers threw out an estimated 14.6 billion pieces of plastic cutlery each year, or about 1,940 per person. 

Another crazy fact is plastic and polyfoam dining ware was 200 tonnes two years ago, equal to the weight of 13 double-decker buses.

Green groups say the ban in 2025 is too far off and should be implemented much sooner.

Greenpeace campaigner Leanne Tam Wing-lam criticized the authorities for making sluggish progress, saying it "was not difficult at all" to kick-start phase one because 26.9 percent of utensils supplied were simply disposable tableware for dine-in.

"Many restaurants have already given up offering disposable tableware to dine-in customers. You can say it's really easy to achieve phase one," she said, adding the government did not give a four-year deadline for eateries to stop giving out plastic cutlery and straws that were commonly used in homes and offices.

Again -- it goes back to the consumer. They should have their own set of cutlery at home or in the office to use. Food delivery services are offering the option of not receiving cutlery, but not everyone pays attention when ordering online.

Green groups say 2025 is too far away

Ten green groups held a joint press conference today, saying they were disappointed by the government's planning.

"The sizes of the plastic tableware banned in phase two are much larger than those in phase one. The environmental pollution it [will cause] is more serious. But the government does not have an exact time table for banning these tableware which will cause more pollution," said Tam.

She also pointed out pre-packaged food products were excluded from the ban, and so eateries may take advantage of this loophole to avoid using tableware made of other materials.

And if plasticware is banned, it may lead to an increase in waste of other materials, pointed out by Yu Kin-kong, assistant education and project manager of Green Power. He noted some paper food containers and cups could contain plastic and other materials, making it  harder to recycle.

Also many do not realize that once food touches a paper box that may not be lined with plastic, it also cannot be recycled because of hygiene purposes.

So we are again back to where we started -- the consumer must take more responsibility for their food choices and how they want to eat and store their food.

Food delivery companies are definitely exacerbating the problem. If the government is serious about cutting down the number of food containers going to the landfill then it needs to start getting consumers educated about the seriousness of the issue and offer solutions that people must follow now.

The earth cannot handle all this garbage anymore.

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.

Hong Kong Government Denials

Protesters dealing with non-stop tear gas in an earlier protest

Last week it was Matthew Cheung Kin-chung who left us all flabbergasted with his comment that he didn't understand why people were still angry even though the government had withdrawn the extradition bill.

This week it's Sophia Chan Siu-chee's turn.

Sophia Chan refuses to disclose the chemicals in tear gas

There have been calls since the protests began, asking what exactly is in the tear gas in terms of chemical composition so that the public and healthcare workers know how to treat victims of tear gas.

However, Chan denies there is a harmful effect from tear gas use, and refuses to disclose the chemical composition of the gas for fear it would affect police operations.

So police operations are more important than people's health?

Chan added the police were sourcing "safe and suitable equipment globally according to the established procedures".

Many dead birds have been sighted

She even had the gall to say in the Legislative Council that there was no evidence to suggest the use of tear gas can produce dioxins or cause dioxin poisoning.

"Given the short time of combustion of a tear gas canister, any cyanide produced will be quickly dispersed in the air," the health secretary said.

We know where this government's priorities are.
Then the environment secretary Wong Kam-sing attributes the toxic substances in the air to the burning of shops, and garbage, and Molotov cocktails.

So 10,000 rounds of tear gas don't mean much?

Have Chan and Wong seen the dead birds and squirrels around the city, especially around Hong Kong Polytechnic University these past few days?

These animals didn't commit mass suicide or all ate the same bad apple. 

Again these comments not only show how out of touch Hong Kong's senior officials are, but also how desperate they are to show they are in line with Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, or with Beijing.

Wong Kam-sin says pollution is created by the protesters

With their integrity is virtually non-existent these days, perhaps they think they can lie about everything.


Do they seriously think people believe them, regardless of what side they are on?

These elites are really astounding in their tone deafness...

Mourning Loss of a Beijing Bookstore

The Bookworm was a wonderful place to learn more about China in English

Today came sad news from Beijing -- The Bookworm is closing next Monday, November 11. For many expats in the Chinese capital go there to not only find books, but also meet people, have a drink, have lunch, hang out, and write their memoirs (I know at least one journalist did!).

For me it was a great place to listen to all kinds of speakers talk about China, and they were all pretty frank about the politics, the economy, social and environmental issues. But they were also very excited about what they were discovering.

Paleontologist Xu Xing talked about his field work

I remember paleontologist Xu Xing talking about discovering dinosaurs in Liaoning province and how there are so many dinosaurs yet to be unearthed and what they can tell us about prehistoric life in what is geographically China now.

One year I interviewed Howard Goldblatt, who through his winding career that started off in the US Army led to him studying Chinese in Taiwan and had a knack for learning the language so much so that he became a translator.

And listening to him talk about what it's like to translate a novel, and in particular Chinese -- you have to really understand what the author meant to say in the passage to be able to convey that in a similar writing style but in English.

He translated Wolf Totem, a semi-autobiographical novel by Jiang Rong, that talks about young people being sent down to remote Inner Mongolia and learning the ways of the nomadic people there and how wolves are critical to the ecosystem.

Academic Howard Goldblatt on the intricacies of translation

The Bookworm held the Literary Festival every year and there were always interesting authors coming through, or people who live in Beijing but I didn't know about. I always tried to catch as many of these as I could to get different perspectives on things.

Sadly the bookstore and unofficial community centre is closing down because it is an "illegal structure".

General manager David Cantaloupo explained The Bookworm was originally started on Sanlitun Beilu in 2002 and then moved to Courtyard 4 in Sanlitun, diagonally opposite Sanlitun Village.

"[When] they started to privatize state-run enterprises 20 years ago, regulations were looser then," he says. "[The bookshop was built] on a pump room. It doesn't have an address. It's [built on] a structure that was never [transformed] into things that they can rent out. [It is an illegal structure]. We've been paying rent here for a long time.

Many authors came to the Literary Festival every year

"[The government] are trying to clean up Beijing. City planners are trying to get things in order. Whether there's anything else behind it, it is unclear to us," Cantalupo said.

In a statement that was disseminated this afternoon, the bookstore thanked everyone for their support and hoped to keep The Bookworm going.

"While we attempt to reorganize and find a new location, we wish to say what an honor and a pleasure it has been to have played a small part in fostering cultural exchange, promoting literature and an appreciation of the arts during an incredibly exciting era in Beijing, and indeed for China as a whole."

I hope the owners do find a new location and keep The Bookworm going. It's doing a massive public service to bridge the gap between East and West, creating greater understanding of China, and at the same time making us expats feel like we're not alone in Beijing.

Hong Kong's Pathetic Glass Recycling Efforts

There's still lots of glass that isn't recycled in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong government is really behind when it comes to recycling and we've mentioned it before. Last year over 13,000 tonnes of glass was collected, a more than 60 percent increase from the year before. While that's an impressive-sounding jump, consider there are 7 million people who live in the city, many of whom have some kind of glass bottle or container they should be recycling.

And now that Hong Kong has appointed two glass management contractors to recycle glass, the government claims they can't get collect enough glass. So now it wants its citizens to do that for them.

Groups like Green Glass Green started glass recycling in 2010

But it's very easy for the government to do this -- legislate all restaurants, bars and hotels to collect all the glass bottles and have them either sent to a collection centre or sent to a central location where the glass can be picked up. Anyone caught throwing glass in the garbage should be fined an exorbitant amount.

How difficult is that?

One wine importer even wrote a letter to the editor estimating that as the government has issued over 1,000 import licenses (many of them related to wine), there must be some 1 million glass bottles alone that could be recycled in a year.

The government makes it sound like a gargantuan task when really everyone wants to help out but the systems aren't really in place.

Put your glass in this container!

I'm lucky to have a glass collection bin downstairs from where I live; the glass bin filled up so fast that a second one had to be installed.

The same could be said for metal cans and paper products. Admittedly plastic is difficult to tackle with the various different grades, but it's not impossible. It's just that the authorities need to do more to educate residents about what can be recycled and how it's done.

Glass recycling and collecting was started by non profit green groups since at least 2010 and only now is the government seriously stepping up recycling efforts...
 

Hu Junior Rising up Political Ranks

Hu Haifeng has been promoted to party boss in Xian, Shaanxi province

The Two Sessions are still going on in Beijing until Friday, and the other day there was an interesting announcement -- former president Hu Jintao's son, Hu Haifeng, will be promoted to become the new Communist Party chief in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province.

The 46-year-old will be elevated to the rank of vice minister, a big jump from his current position of party boss of Lishui, a much smaller city in Zhejiang province. Hu will also become a member of Shaanxi province's standing committee.

While Xian is an important economic centre in China's northwest, it is dealing with the fallout from a political scandal where several officials are under investigation by the party's anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Hu Haifeng is former president Hu Jintao's son

The officials were accused of corruption and dereliction of duty after they ignored direct orders from President Xi Jinping to demolish illegal villas built in a nature reserve in the Qinling mountains.

Beijing-based political analyst Zhang Lifan says Hu's promotion is seen as a gesture by Xi to appease Hu Jintao's supporters, as the president faces greater challenges domestically and internationally.

"Xi is facing a difficult situation now," Zhang said, referring to the trade war with the United States and slowing economic growth.

However, Zhang warned Xian would be a difficult assignment for someone who was not politically experienced and Hu needed to prove he was up for the challenge.

"[Hu] Haifeng initially was not very happy about becoming an official. He planned to become a technician and academic," said an acquaintance of the younger Hu.

"But the [party's Organization Department] picked him because the central government needed to bring in brilliant young people born in the 1970s."

Hu graduated from Beijing Jiaotong University in computer science and didn't enter politics until 2013. He worked as a senior engineer at state-owned Tsinghua Holdings and later became the president of Nuctech, a security scanning equipment maker controlled by Tsinghua Holdings.

Some Nuctech scanners for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil

By the way, Nuctech has a near monopoly on security scanning equipment in China, pretty much a slam dunk in terms of revenues. For starters, every subway station entrance in the country has these scanning devices...

However, Hu's record isn't completely blemish free -- the company was embroiled in a corruption scandal in Namibia in 2009. Hu was president of Nuctech until the year before and then party boss of parent company Tsinghua Holdings in 2009.

At the time Namibian authorities said Hu was not a suspect, but they still wanted him to testify. News of the case was completely censored in China.

No one knows what happened in the end...

Hu's political career started in 2013 as deputy mayor of Jiaxing, a city in Zhejiang, just months after his father retired. He was later promoted to mayor of Jiaxing three years later and Lishui's party boss in July, making him the youngest prefectural-level party chief in the province.

In Lishui, Hu promoted environmental protection and eco-friendly industries, aligning himself with Xi's message that "green hills and clear waters are the true gold and silver mines".

Last April, Xi openly praised Hu's green development strategy and last month, Hu wrote an article in a party magazine in Zhejiang where he vowed to live up to the president's praise and achieve a healthy balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

Hu seems to be one to watch, even though he is reluctantly rising up the political ranks. When Xi throws you a bone, you gotta take it...

Picture of the Day: Giant Monkey

A giant snub-nosed monkey hanging from H Queens

The other day I was at Tai Kwun, the former Central Police headquarters, and when I looked up, I saw a giant monkey across the street!

Called Golden Monkey, it's a 14-metre tall inflated snub-nosed monkey created by Australian artist Lisa Roet. It was installed in December on the H Queens building and will be there until next month.

Several years ago Roet began a series of works called Extinct Distinct, based on her documentation of some newly discovered yet endangered species of primates.

She says there are many interesting stories associated with snub-nosed monkeys. "Their sneezing snub nose is definitely one of them," Roet says. "They sneeze to get melted ice and rain out of their upturned nose. Before they were discovered, nearby villagers though the sneezing sound was from their sick ancestors. That led scientists traveling in the village to investigate, and they found this new species in Yunnan's high mountains in 20210. Global warming made an impact on its habitat, making it a symbol of changing global weather patterns."

As a result, Roet wants to make large-scale versions of this monkey to place them on skyscrapers in urban centres to highlight the increasing urbanization and co-habitation of urban and nature.

Picture of the Day: Bank of China

The giant peach blossom tree in the Bank of China lobby

Many shopping malls, offices and apartment buildings have peach blossom trees in vases. It's kind of like a pink Christmas tree, decorated with lai see envelopes hanging from the branches. Peach blossoms are also meant to signify romance and longevity.

These trees are so hard to photograph up close. The one in the Bank of China headquarters in Central is very impressive and I took a picture of it as I was going up the escalator. Only then can you see the size but also the dramatic space that it's situated in.

The sad thing about these trees is that after the new year holidays, they are unceremoniously dumped, and there's no tree chipping service like they have after Christmas in North America.

How about making some kind of compost out of these trees or keeping them alive throughout the year so that they can be used the following year?

Hong Kong needs to be more responsible when it comes to dealing with living things, and of course being more sustainable in general.

But in the meantime we're enjoying this peach blossom tree while it's on display....

Man's Disturbing Effect on the Planet

Striking images of elephant tusks being burned show destruction by man

Another documentary I saw on the plane was Anthropocene by Nicholas De Pencier, Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky. Baichwal and Burtynsky have also worked on Manufactured Landscapes and Watermark, and Anthropocene is the third of the trilogy about how man is changing the natural landscape.

Manufactured Landscapes was about China being the world's factory, watching hundreds of thousands of workers doing the most mundane tasks to make products for us in the West to use.



Their next project Watermark was about how water levels are dropping around the world due to overuse or pollution, and how dire it is for farmers not having enough water to produce crops and how they have to dig deeper to get water.

And finally Anthropocene refers to our current geological age where human activity is affecting the climate and environment.

Carrara marble being extracted from a quarry in Italy

The documentary takes viewers around to 20 countries on six continents to see the devastating effects humans are having on the planet. For example tone scene shows Carrara marble being cut out of the quarry and one of the workers jokes the success of Carrara is thanks to Michelangelo, who demanded to only use this kind of marble for his masterpieces.

Then there's a shot in a workshop where several artisans make copies of Michelangelo's sculptures -- using the same marble he used hundreds of years ago. I also think of the luxury apartments in Manhattan that feature Carrara marble in their bathrooms.

The film goes to a bleak town in Russia called Norilsk that is considered the most polluted in the country. The main industry is smelting to extract minerals in high heat. Three Russian women are interviewed and one says how the town is dreary, but you get used to it and see the beauty in the stone. They laugh.

Another scene shows an unscripted moment of two workers having lunch and talking about how the filmmakers are recording everything they are saying.

Scavengers, animals and humans, hunt around a landfill

In Germany there is a giant machine that weighs 12,000 tons and scrapes out an entire hillside of dirt. The man running the machine is proud of this piece of technology and not really thinking about the effect it has on the environment.

Then in Nigeria there's a massive landfill with men, women and children literally ripping up garbage bags and scrounging for anything that can be recycled. They dig through the dirty trash with their bare hands and carry what they've found in baskets on their heads. Meanwhile birds hang around them, looking for bits of food to feed on.

Meanwhile in Kenya, a black woman activist talks about trying to stop the ivory trade. She feels guilty for not being able to save elephants' lives, but at least she has stopped people from making a living from killing the animals to get their tusks.

There are scenes of men carrying the tusks one by one and creating giant pyres that are later set alight to show the world that the ivory trade will be stamped out.

However go to Hong Kong, and a master carver prides himself on making intricate masterpieces on these tusks. he has a team of people using various tools to create a sea of people, flowers, trees, dragons and landscapes all on one tusk.

Baichwal, De Pencier and Burtynsky are the film's directors

He boasts the prices can range from several hundred to millions of dollars. But because the authorities are cracking down on the ivory trade, the man speaking Cantonese says he has found another better source -- that is not yet illegal -- mammoth ivory tusks. He won't be idle any time soon.

There's also shots of old growth forests in British Columbia being cut down and the narrator says there are less than 20 percent of the forests left in the world. It's shocking statistics like these that are disturbing and hopefully jolt people into realizing how much we have lost.

Nevertheless, some people in the documentary are indifferent because what they are doing is their livelihood, while others are very worried about the impact these actions have on the environment but are too small to stop them.

The images shot particularly from drones are beautiful and shocking at the same time -- this tension that Burtynsky is very well known for. A bulldozer pushes salt along a path and the camera pulls back to see how big the salt field is, that seems to go on forever.

Anthropocene first premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year and hopefully more people will see this documentary, and see what we collectively as humans are doing to the planet we live on.

The Most Bizarre Reason for Beijing's Smog

Beijing's smog today (left) and what it looked like last month (right)

Now that Golden Week is over, everyone's back to work, and that means the smog has returned to Beijing.

This morning the air looked gray and the Air Quality Index measured at 213 -- which means heavily polluted.

The skies today were in stark contrast to August and September when there were clear blue skies that were hailed as some of the best air quality since officials began releasing data on PM2.5 -- microscopic particles that can be harmful to lungs.

A woman puts on a mask to try to avoid the smog

The smog congregated in Beijing because the air was static. But also officials are blaming residents from using everything from hair gel, perfume and air fresheners for the smog.

Really.

State media released a report from Beijing's Bureau of Environmental Protection from back in May, saying household emissions -- everything from cooking and hair sprays to perfume and air fresheners accounted for 12 percent of the city's total.

That would equate household emissions with industrial emissions.

How ridiculous is that?

Shi Aijun, deputy dean of the Beijing Academy of Environmental Sciences told Science and Technology Daily that daily emissions had been growing -- especially from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that give everyday products like perfume, hair gel and air fresheners their smell.

But Peng Yingdeng, a researcher from the Beijing Municipal Research Institute of Environmental Protection said it would be hard to measure the impact of these products on air quality.

Did hair gel, perfume and air fresheners cause the smog?

"It is difficult to pinpoint exactly how much these consumer products like hair gel contributed to PM2.5 levels since VOCs are not pollutants themselves and produce PM2.5 only after a chemical reaction. At the moment we can only calculate an estimate from the use of these products," Peng said.

So there is even disagreement in the scientific community about this.

State media reports said local emissions accounted for two-thirds of the pollution in Beijing last year, the rest from surrounding areas. Vehicle exhaust fumes were the biggest culprit, and the reports claimed households contributed the same level of pollution as mainly printing and vehicle manufacturers.

The population of Beijing was 21.7 million last year -- did all those people use hair gel, perfume and air fresheners? Highly unlikely.

Local authorities and the scientific community have to find another reason why the smog is so bad because the reasoning just stinks.

Do We Need More Bubble Tea?

Customers wait over an hour for bubble tea at Tiger Sugar in Causeway Bay

 Would you wait over an hour for bubble tea?

It's all the craze in Hong Kong which I find bizarre as bubble tea was the drink of the 80s and now it's back again?

This bubble tea shop is social media savvy

Over a month ago a colleague told me about a shop called Tiger Sugar that opened in Causeway Bay and people were willing to wait over an hour for the drink -- even though they were wilting in the heat.

And landlords are greedily rubbing their hands together at the thought of more bubble tea brands coming to the city looking for spaces to rent.

Since July there were 62 different brands of bubble tea in Hong Kong with 282 shops.

Do we really need more?

Apparently the demand is there. These shops just need 250 sq ft to 300 sq ft preferably near schools, offices, where young people hang out like Mongkok, Jordan, Causeway Bay, Central.

And the shops are financially able to afford rents now that they have dropped about 20 percent since the peak in 2014. With rents at around HK$300 to HK$400 per sq ft, that means the total rent could be HK$90,000 to HK$120,000. That's a lot of cups of bubble tea to sell.

People take pictures to show others what they're drinking

What is driving the demand is social media -- people posting pictures of the drinks they have bought, raving about how long they waited and yet the bubble tea was so good. Those looking at the pictures feel like they're missing out.

Not me!

Bubble tea drinks are hardly healthy, as it's the giant tapioca balls are made of starch, which means lots of sugar. No one really finishes all those tapioca balls and even worse the drinks are served in plastic cups with plastic straws. Hardly environmentally friendly.

And we're going to have more bubble tea shops?

This craze is temporary and then many of these shops are going to close down. Then again I might be wrong, but it's definitely breeding a lot of potential diabetics in the future...

Living in a Haze

This picture of Central was taking at 6pm with a very hazy skyline

For the past two weeks Hong Kong has been shrouded in haze. Even periodic heavy rainstorms can't wash the humid grayness away from the city.

It's pretty much unprecedented and today was particularly gray.

Air pollution levels were off the charts today in Hong Kong

Many of my colleagues remarked about the hazy weather and one was so mortified by the air pollution readings that he posted on our internal messaging system that the AQI or Air Quality Index was 175, deemed "Unhealthy" in red type.

Thanks for that, but what can we do?

It feels very humid outside, but the recent and current typhoons around the region have caused air movement to stagnate. It's particularly bad for children and the elderly as well as people who have asthma, and I've been trying to stay indoors as much as possible.

The Environmental Protection Department issued a warning, saying the air quality would remain bad until next week, as light winds were unable to disperse the pollutants in the air.

Pollution was made worse by people burning money tonight

Tonight when I was coming home, I saw people burning things on the street and lighting candles -- it's the eve of the Hungry Ghost Festival that starts tomorrow until September 9 this year. That means every evening people will be burning "hell money", creating even more air pollution.

I feel for the businesses that are near these people burning things, as the ashes end up blowing into their premises and they didn't ask for it, let alone breathing in the smoke.

While they are only burning money and incense in the evenings, creating less air pollution would help, especially when we're dealing with this terrible haze!

HK Needs Multi-Pronged Strategy on Food Waste

Seems a lot of people throw out soup ingredients instead of eat them

I was shocked to read a news story today that said the ingredients used to make Cantonese soup make up 40 percent of Hong Kong's food waste.

According to local NGO Food Grace, everyday Hongkongers throw out 450 tonnes of the soup ingredients, the weight equivalent to 1,000 cows, or 40 percent of the city's total household waste.

Winter melon soup is suggested as a soup with less waste

This is strange to me, as I am someone who grew up eating the soup ingredients, not just drinking the savoury and nourishing broth, though there are others who only prefer the soup and believe the ingredients, having been simmering for hours are tasteless.

Casey Ng, Food Grace project manager, explains while food waste will decompose easily compared to single-use plastic, it also produces greenhouse gases like methane and waste water that harm the environment. Not only that, they also attract pests that spread disease.

Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department says food makes up 35 percent of solid waste going into landfills, 65 percent of which comes from homes.

Wendell Chan, programme officer for the Hong Kong branch of Friends of the Earth suggests ways for households to cut down on food waste.

450 tonnes of soup ingredients are thrown out every day

"You don't always have to cook soups that create so many leftovers. There are soups, such as winter melon soup, where you can eat most of the ingredients, so you don't get much inedible food waste.

"Secondly, the meat that is used, for example, in pork bone soups, can be chopped up and used for other dishes afterwards."

Chef Chung Chi-keung says the bones can be boiled again to make a broth for vegetables, and leftover meat used in other dishes. He observes many restaurants are using these tips to cut down on their food waste.

The government periodically has PSAs or public service announcements telling people to be more thoughtful when ordering food so that there isn't much food waste, but what about a concerted effort to deal with the actual food waste?

Food rescued from a dump -- we need to save more food

More needs to be done in terms of rescuing food that can be given to the needy, and then composting the rest of the food waste. If more food was composted, the city would need to buy less fertilizer for its trees and plants around the city, and also why not encourage small-scale agriculture in the New Territories? They could use the fertilizer too and grow organic vegetables.

There needs to be a circular system that works. Right now Hong Kong has band-aid solutions that go no where. Some of the city's western restaurants are very keen on using local ingredients, but there aren't enough suppliers or the quality isn't consistent enough. Why can't the government support these growers, as having local ingredients used in the city's top dining establishments would be another way to promote Hong Kong?

Or are we thinking too far ahead?