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...
 

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...

With Rain Comes Umbrellas and Plastic

The view of Victoria Harbour this morning from Kennedy Town

In the last few weeks we have had cloudy skies and intermittent rain storms throughout the day so you never know when you'll need an umbrella. The other day we even had a red rainstorm warning, but the heavy rains were in the New Territories and not on Hong Kong island or Kowloon.

Nevertheless, the reality is that with rain comes plastic in the form of umbrella covers so that there is less water on the floor, less mess to mop, and less chance of people slipping.

But it does create a lot of one-use plastic.

Make your umbrella less wet with this

A local environmental group called Greens Action shamed the Hong Kong government for encouraging people to use the plastic umbrella covers at 60 of its 83 buildings managed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department.

"We are very disappointed that while the government has been encouraging citizens to adopt a greener lifestyle, some departments have failed to follow their own environmentally friendly policies," Greeners Action's Yip Chui-man said.

We have to agree. Even the MTR, which services millions of commuters everyday, doesn't give out plastic covers for umbrellas when it rains, but employs the use of industrial fans to blow dry the floor.

I recently wandered into Pacific Place in Admiralty and they had an interesting contraption to get rid of most of the water off umbrellas.

I haven't actually tried it, but basically you stick the umbrella in the slot and move it up and down to wipe off as much water as possible. The only downside is that you can't stick folded umbrellas in the contraption.

Nevertheless it's a start. The less plastic we use the better -- even if it means having wet floors.

You May be Eating Microplastics

Microplastics like these end up in the stomachs of many local fish and seafood

Following yesterday's post about beach clean-ups around Hong Kong, Greenpeace says microplastics are found in 60 percent of a fish species called wild flathead grey mullet that is consumed by locals.

Researchers at the Education University of Hong Kong have found an average of 4.3 fragments of microplastics in each fish, with one ingesting up to 80 fragments. They come from plastic bottles, packaging, straws, cups and single-use cutlery that have been broken down in the ocean.

A locally caught flathead grey mullet in a restaurant

"Mudflats and sediments under the sea are like restaurants for marine species," says Greenpeace campaigner Chan Hall-sion. "When both of them are polluted with microplastics, that will become the food for the flathead grey mullet and other types of marine animals."

Chan says there are at least 170 marine species including mussels, lobster, silver herring and oysters that contain microplastics.

Last month, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's division of life sciences found that microbeads -- that can be found in items ranging from facial scrubs to toothpaste -- end up in the digestive tracts of fish and other marine creatures. This is not new, but confirms it's happening in Hong Kong.

And an even more mind-boggling statistic -- an earlier Education University study found Hong Kong beaches recorded an average of 5,000 pieces of microplastics per square metre -- 2.4 times higher than the concentration in the United States.

Some plastics that were found in the flathead grey mullet

If that's not enough impetus to get people to cut down on their use of plastic, I don't know what is. Some may say they don't eat local seafood, so who cares? But this is for the health of the oceans everywhere. We cannot afford to have marine life die around the world because we're dumping garbage into the world's oceans. Water travels everywhere.

There are so many small things we can do to drastically cut down on the amount of plastic we use -- like not buying bottled water, using reusable bags for groceries, not using disposable plates, cups and cutlery, and no straws.

How hard can it be to make these changes for the health of not only the planet, but us too?

Earth Day? More Like Plastic Day

How does this mountain of garbage make Hong Kong look beautiful?

Today is Earth Day and some 1,500 people took part in beach clean-ups in Hong Kong and collected over 3,000kg of junk, most of it plastic. It included plastic bottles, plastic wrappers, plastic packaging, children's toys and cigarette lighters.

"I would say about 80 percent of what we picked up were plastic items that were only used once... and most of it was local," said Dr Robert Lockyer, director of operations at the AquaMeridian Conservation and Education Foundation, one of the groups organizing the major citywide beach clean-up.

The clean-ups were at Sai Kung, Lamma Island, Discovery Bay, Tai Po, Central and Sham Tseng.

Mainly one-use plastic items were collected on beaches

In recent months, some restaurants owned by expats have announced they are not using plastic straws anymore, and instead either using paper or metal straws, or none at all.

There is also a Facebook page that encourages people to write to restaurants, shops and grocery stores to complain about their excessive use of plastic packaging, and then post the letter on the social media site.

It's called A letter a day keeps the plastic away, and many people are posting their letters and responses from companies, but the replies are usually standard corporate ones that seem mildly concerned, but not much concrete action to rectify the situation.

Most expats and local Hong Kong Chinese who have lived abroad and are environmentally conscious, know too much plastic is bad for the environment. The focus should be on educating locals, Chinese restaurants and cha chaan tengs that they need to change their habits.

My friend YTSL regularly organises beach clean-ups and sometimes she can be demoralized when she cleans up a beach one week and then returns the following week only to see it covered in trash again.

Hong Kong's waste problem is growing every year

I try to be conscious about my grocery shopping -- using my own bag and when I'm out, carrying a thermos of water so that I don't need to buy a water bottle. But there are some people -- mostly men I have to say through observation -- who don't do either and don't think twice about paying HK50 cents for a plastic bag or buying a bottle of water.

The Hong Kong government really isn't doing enough to get people to use less plastic or legislate companies to use less packaging because the authorities aren't serious about protecting the environment.

In 2016, 10,345 tonnes of municipal waste was sent to landfills every day -- 1.8 percent more than the year before, though most of it was commercial rather than residential. Of this waste, 20 percent or 3,132 tonnes was plastic.

This has to stop soon because it is unsustainable. Is there no one else who understands this? Or is it because people are so reliant on domestic helpers to clean and cook that they are completely unaware of how much garbage they create?

Another day, another Earth Day. But environmental NGOs have more work to do to get the public and companies to understand waste is everyone's responsibility.

Li Ka-shing Exits Stage Right

This afternoon Li Ka-shing (centre) cozies up with reporters for pictures

This afternoon was the earth-shattering announcement we've been waiting for -- tycoon Li Ka-shing is retiring.

In a live broadcast from Cheung Kong Centre, the 89-year-old said after almost seven decades in business, he is stepping down from both CK Hutchison Holdings and CK Asset Holdings and passing the reins to his younger son Victor Li Tzar-kuoi.

This was no surprise, as the younger Li has been working with his father for over 33 years, while older son Richard Li Tzar-kai "has many other businesses".

In a letter to staff that Li addressed them as colleagues, he recalled escaping war-torn China when he was 12 years old and came to Hong Kong. The famous legend of Li selling plastic flowers gave the high school dropout the capital to expand into other businesses, in particular real estate.

Li takes his final bow with son Victor on his right

"Not long afterwards, I founded Cheung Kong, the predecessor of CK Hutchison and CK Asset. That was 1950," he writes. "By 1972 I was able to grow the firm into a publicly-listed company -- stock code 001HK."

Today the conglomerate includes media, hotels, shipping, grocery stores and oil that has dealings in 50 countries.

During his announcement, Li said he would devote time to philanthropy, including the KS-LK Foundation, especially in issues related to healthcare and education.

Li finished his tenure on a high, as the companies, including Power Assets and CKI recorded higher 2017 earnings that largely met market expectations.

However, the tycoon is stepping down at a time when his influence is already waning. In 2013, dock workers went on strike for 40 days, demanding higher pay and better working conditions.

The 2013 dockworkers' strike damaged Li's reputation

At one point they occupied the front entrance of Cheung Kong Centre with a giant picture of Li's face and devil horns coming out of his head. In the end the dockworkers got a 9.8 percent pay rise, but the public's admiration for Li had nosedived because his immense wealth was compared to the lowly dock worker.

Li's reputation further spiraled during the Umbrella Movement a year later when thousands of people occupied the streets in Admiralty, Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui and Mongkok for 79 days. When it first started, the business elite were silent, and then Li finally spoke.

While he said he understood the protesters "passionate pursuits", he believed they should go home, warning them not to "let today's passion become tomorrow's regret". He knew people would be punished, but underestimated that people did not regret their actions, despite the legal challenges the protest leaders in particular faced.

Li was widely admired in China, but he cashed out anyway

And his relationship with China also soured. Despite pouring millions of yuan into the country, in 2015 Li decided to cash out, which angered Chinese state media and many mainlanders, who felt the businessman was being unpatriotic.

Nevertheless, Li won't be completely retiring. While he will continue to stay on as a senior adviser, it seems Li still wants to keep an active role in the businesses.

When a reporter tried to ask Victor Li a question about the company's future investments, his father interrupted as his son was getting the microphone. "I'll answer for him," Li said.

Number of the Day: 14 Million Umbrella Bags

When it rains, umbrella bags are quickly distributed and end up in the trash

All this rain in Hong Kong this summer has led to green groups to estimate how many of those plastic umbrella sleeves are distributed everyday, and they have come up with the number of 14 million from June to September.

According to Greeners Action, around 90 percent of the 53 shopping malls, commercial buildings, and government facilities around town distributed the plastic covers during the rain because they wanted to keep the floors dry and prevent people from slipping.

The environmental group calculated on average 288 of these long narrow plastic bags were given out every 45 minutes. Around 7 percent of the venues had staff specifically handing out the bags even if tenants or shoppers didn't want them.

"People use these bags only when they enter the property and discard them when they leave. Time of use is short but the waste they generate is serious," says Greeners Action assistant project manager Yip Chui-man.

"Whether it's the property [management] or the public, both sides need to take a further step and reduce the use of these bags."

Yip said the buildings could either have umbrella racks, floor mats, or recycling bins available, or even use a different floor material to prevent slipping.

The last point is definitely true. Landlords like to have shiny floors, but they are the hardest to maintain. A lot of manpower is used to clean them, especially marble floors and polish them. Why not be practical and safe by using alternative floor materials?

When it comes to these umbrella covers, there is pretty much no choice but to use them especially when building staff are standing by and expecting you to use them. In this case I use them and keep the bag until I get home... but then what? It still ends up in the trash.

There has to be another way to deal with this situation -- to balance out the need to keep floors relatively dry and concerns about the environment...

Pitch in for Cleaner Seas

Lots of garbage gets washed up  -- imagine how much is in the sea!

One of my friends, YTSL regularly joins a group to do beach clean-ups around Hong Kong. She is dismayed to find each time there is the same amount of garbage or even more sometimes. But she hopes that each time she pitches in she is doing her small but significant part in improving the environment.

Part of the problem is old school thinking by people who don't seem interested in trying to make the environment better for the next generation and beyond.

Case in point are the styrofoam boxes used by fishermen to transport their catches to wholesale markets.

WWF-Hong Kong's corrugated plastic boxes

"We see many of these boxes floating along the coastline and in places like Aberdeen typhoon shelter, which may have been dumped or blown into the water," says WWF-Hong Kong's project manager for marine affairs, Patrick Yeung Chung-wing.

"This has a huge impact on the environment as foam is very brittle and light, making it very hard to clean up once it's in the sea."

Not only do they pollute the water, but also the fish mistake the small white bits as food. These non-digestible things make the fish think it's full, but really it's not.

About a year ago, some scientists did biopsies of local fish and found lots of plastic and styrofoam in their stomachs. How gross is that!

According to a 2015 report compiled by the Environmental Protection Department, foam plastic makes up for one-fifth of marine refuse.

Marine life may mistaken floating plastic as food

WWF-Hong Kong is now launching a trial scheme with local fisheries representatives to use sturdy crates made from cheap, lightweight corrugated plastic.

What was the reaction? One would have thought the fishing industry would welcome the chance to improve the environment.

Instead Hong Kong Fishermen Consortium chairman Cheung Siu-keung says they would only consider the corrugated plastic crates if they were cheap, functional and durable.

"The most important consideration will be the ability to maintain the temperature of its contents," he said. "Reliable supply will also be important."

Yeung also hopes the fishermen will consider deploying special trawler nets to scoop up floating refuse more efficiently, and even bring back refuse in their nets back to shore instead of dumping them into the sea.

"Rubbish should be cleaned up in the sea and sorted onshore and given a new product life. In Hong Kong, there are no groups or companies doing this," he says.

We all need to pitch in to make the harbour cleaner. And it seems just trying to get the right attitude from stakeholders is the biggest challenge of all...

Fact of the Day: Hong Kong's Trashy Behaviour

Why is Hong Kong's waste output increasing each year and not decreasing?

Us Hong Kong people dump a lot of garbage.

Last year, an average of 14,859 tonnes of solid waste was thrown out every day, an increase of 3.8 percent from 2013. Most of it was a 10 percent increase in construction waste, according to the latest Environmental Protection Department statistics.

So the amount of municipal solid waste dumped in landfills increased 2.5 percent from an average of 9,547 tonnes per day in 2013 to 9,782 tonnes last year. This kind of waste is generated from domestic, commercial and industrial sectors, with one-third of it being food.

Most of the garbage, at one-third, is food waste

When broken down per person, per day, it's 1.35kg last year, 1.33kg in 2013, 1.32kg in 2012 and 1.27kg in 2011.

What are we throwing out? Can't some of it be recycled? And do we have to buy so much in the first place?

This is hardly helping to meet government targets of reducing waste by 20 percent by 2017, and 40 percent by 2022.

Recycling is doing poorly at a pathetic 37 percent last year, with the quantity of recyclable materials increased by 45,000 tonnes compared to 2014. While more metals are being recycled, the collection of paper dropped by 87,000 tonnes, and plastic by 144,000 tonnes.

The government really needs to subsidize recycling in order to make people think of this as a way to reduce their waste. We can always use the recycling for other things. It's not as if the city is poor -- we have the financial resources to support this industry to make it a more viable one and create jobs as well as clean up the environment.

Not everyone uses these recycling bins property...

In the meantime, green groups are calling on the government to implement the waste charging scheme as soon as possible, though they don't anticipate it being implemented until 2018 or 2019.

However, we can already envision people dumping their trash in public waste bins to avoid being charged, and this is being done already. Perhaps the waste management department does too good of a job taking away our garbage so there isn't an appreciation for how much trash we accumulate...