The Young Reporter Vol. 54 Issue 2

THE YOUNG REPORTER Volume 54 Issue 02 Environment November 2021

The environment issue: Greening HK as a financial hub Saving our fireflies “Ghost” nets haunt HK waters

Editor’s Letter After Hong Kong was hit by two tropical cyclones, Lionrock and Kompasu, back to back in October, it raised some environmental concerns.

We wanted to dig deeper into what these extreme weather conditions mean for Hong Kong’s environment and how the city’s greenery is being impacted as a whole.

From food, to recycling, to marine life, this issue explores how various aspects of Hong Kong’s environment are changing.

Our reporters spoke to NGOs and other experts in the field to explore that.

The Young Reporter Vol. 54 No. 2 Printer The Green Pagoda Press Ltd 9/F, Block A & B, Tung Chong Factory Building, 653- 655 King’s Road, North Point, HK

Editor-in-Chief Simran Vaswani Deputy Editors Cora Zhu Janice Lo Jasmine Tse Sara Cheng Art Designers Cora Zhu Stacy Shi Tobey Chan Reporters Ayra Wong Grace Koo Jayde Cheung

As the new year arrives, The Young Reporter prepares to take on a new editorial board. We’re excited for the upcoming new visions for TYR and we hope you’ve enjoyed our issues this year as much as we enjoyed creating them.

Sincerely, Simran Vaswani Editor-in-chief

Malick Gai Nick Yang Tracy Leung Editors Esten Amalvy Kandangwa Sumnima Rani Samuel Li Sara Cheng Stacy Shi Vikki Cai

hkbutyr hkbutyr hkbutyr The Young Reporter tyrmagazine@gmail.com

Advisors Jenny Lam Robin Ewing

tyr.jour.hkbu.edu.hk

In This Issue 04

Greening Hong Kong as a financial hub

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Biodiversity in Hong Kong: Saving Tai Mo Shan’s fireflies

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“Ghost” nets haunt Hong Kong waters

Selling expired products to cut 16 food waste

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Masks save lives but at what cost to the environment?

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Green groups promote online shopping to reduce packaging

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Greening Hong Kong as a financial hub Reported by Ayra Wong Edited by Vikki Cai

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Hong Kong’s green debt market continues to grow in size and diversity.

Source: Climate Bonds Initiative

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Hong Kong is trying to reposition itself as a regional green finance hub.

“Greenwashing” is a new buzzword featured at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. It’s part of the slogan of teeanger climate activist, Greta Thunberg.

for foreign investment in Hong Kong, told The Young Reporter that the city “has an important role to play as a green finance centre”.

Greenwashing refers to a false impression or providing misleading information about how environmentally friendly a business of a product might be.

“A number of listed companies also, very strongly committed to both raising green capital, but also being compliant around bringing standards,” he said, “and Hong Kong obviously serves not only Hong Kong and the rest of China, but also a place in which companies raise money from across the whole of Asia.”

Hong Kong has been trying to reposition itself as an international green financial hub since 2018. But the process finally stepped out this year as the government and industries seek to address disclosure issues in the green and sustainable investment market as a way to stamp out “greenwashing”.

Stephen Phillips, directorgeneral of investment promotion in InvestHK, a department of the government responsible

A report conducted by Standard Chartered Bank in 2020 found that among 1085 respondents from Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Arab Emirate and the United Kingdom, 59% of them who put money in sustainable investment said they would consider investing 5% to 10%

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in sustainable investing, and 75% said they would consider increasing their investment to 25% or more due to the pandemic.

However, Alvin Li, Group Financial Consultant of TAL Group, said many investors may take a wait-and-see attitude towards green investment mainly because it is still under development.

“The green bond market is still relatively new, still in the embryonic stage, and the secondary market is not fully developed. Investors have doubts about the liquidity of the market,” he explained.

“A lot of the feedback we are getting is that investors are very interested in investing their money in sustainable-related investments, but the number

of people who have deployed funds into these vehicles is relatively quite small,” said Mary Leung, the Head, Standards and Advocacy, Asia Pacific at CFA Institute, a global association of investors.

“One of the potential reasons is because there are just too many jargons out there. People don’t understand what it means by being green or sustainable,” she explained.

“And therefore having a framework to allow investment managers to articulate how they approach certain sustainability or ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance )issues help investors understand what they are buying into,” she added.

Mr. Li also said that investors should pay attention to greenwashing.

“Investors can make money while taking responsibility to improve the environment (through green investment),” he said, “but (they) should be careful because some issuers are holding a post without qualifications. They are not really green.”

The lack of transparency and fears of greenwashing are common deterrents for green investment around the world, not just in Hong Kong.

A total of $ 297 billion of green bonds were issued globally over last year.

Source: Climate Bonds Initiative

The epidemic has promoted a global rethink on sustainability and the relationship between people and nature and thus adding renewed interest in green investment.

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The enthusiasm for investment soared during the pandemic. So far in 2021, US$1.325 trillion of ESG debt has been issued which includes US$855.34billion of ESG bonds and US$469.88 billion of ESG loans, nearly double the US$754.3billion of ESG debt in 2020 globally, according to Refinitiv data.

Still, a total of 60% of institutional investors encompassing US$25.9 trillion in assets felt greenwashing was the most significant obstacle to their sustainable investment inversions, according to a report

by Schroders in 2020.

Alongside the investment challenges to greenwashing, almost half of the investors said that a lack of transparency and reported data was restricting their ability to invest sustainably, an increase of 40% a year ago, according to the Schroders’ report.

Ashley Ian Alder, chair of the International Organization of Securities Commissions board, said in the COP26 that different regulatory regimes and voluntary disclosure have led to fragmentation of global sustainability reporting.

He also said at the summit that the inconsistency in regimes and disclosure standards would confuse investors, resulting in mispricing, capital misallocation and greenwashing.

The Hong Kong Securities and Future Commission established the Green and Sustainable Finance Cross-Agency Steering Group in May 2020, hoping

this cross-divisional working group would help with policies in developing Hong Kong as a green finance hub.

The group set tougher rules on the scrutiny and supervision of both local and international ESG funds in June 2021, which require more detailed disclosure of funds, including focus, investment strategy, asset allocation and benchmark to evaluate how the funded project is going.

To help enterprises with ESG report compliance with tougher disclosure requirements of Hong Kong Stock Exchange, many institutions have offered services.

Allied Sustainability and Environmental Consultants Limited (AEC Group), a Hong Kong-based sustainability and environmental consulting firm, announced the launch of an online ESG management platform in late September.

“The platform aims to help enterprises manage their ESG data, and they can also use this platform to check the process towards their environmentalfriendly goals,” said Vima Mak, marketing and relationship manager of AEC Group.

But a system of standards that applies to most green markets around the world, especially global standards on disclosure, is still not in place in Hong Kong.

Taurus Kwan, ESG Senior Consultant of AEC group, said that universal disclosure standards may help reduce

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investors’ doubt about ESG and green financing products.

“The disclosure of information (about investment) is not enough”, he said, adding that “transparency” of information is very important.

“We need to have a global standard for disclosure to reduce greenwashing,” he added, “so that it can give people more confidence to invest.”

Talents in this area were also very important besides a comprehensive disclosure standard, said Ms Leung.

“We’re looking at multiple disciplines across the entire ecosystem and the ability to scale,” she said, “ Hong Kong is an international finance centre, which basically hinges upon whether we can build on our own talents and whether we can attract talents from overseas.”

The Hong Kong government started launching a green bond offering of US$1 billion in May 2019, and it planned to issue HK$175.5 billion (US$ 22.5 billion) worth of green bonds in the coming five years, said Hong Kong’s finance chief Paul Chan Mo-po at the ESG and Green Finance Opportunities Forum on Oct 20, 2021.

Some bond issuances would also be opened to retail buyers “to reap the benefits” of sustainable development.

Biodiversity in H Saving Tai Mo Reported by Nick Yang Edited by Kandangwa Sumnima Rani On an early October morning, a father and son, carrying baskets of garbage and tongs, navigate the forest of Tai Mo Shan.

Chan Wai-tat and Chan Lok-san, have volunteered to clean up the forest by collecting garbage left by hikers and campers. Their goal is to save the habitat of fireflies.

“It is our responsibility to keep our environment clean and save lives in Hong Kong,” Chan Waitat, the father, said.

The two were participating in an activity named “Animal Star” organized by green group Green Power. Every weekend, Green Power recruits volunteers for “Animal Star” to clean forests, beaches and wetlands to provide a better living environment for endangered species, including fireflies, horseshoe crabs, and green sea turtles.

Hong Kong, a coastal city, is one of the most densely populated places in the world and has rich biodiversity, which the government tries to protect through an official action plan focusing on four areas: enhancing conservation, mainstreaming

biodiversity, improving knowledge and promoting community involvement.

“Hong Kong’s biodiversity is of great significance to that of the whole of South China, and we really care about the biodiversity situation here,” said Peggy Chung Ceoi-saan, the project leader of Animal Star.

“However, people’s lack of awareness of species protection and Hong Kong’s lack of legislation and research on marine biological protection need to be strengthened,” she added.

The Green sea turtle, Blackfaced spoonbill, Chinese White Dolphin, and Orchids, are a few examples of endangered animals in Hong Kong, according to the official website of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department.

At present, Hong Kong’s laws on the protection of endangered species only prohibits trade. In addition, the government has also established an endangered species resource center and a new nature conservation policy, whose main measure is to select 12 ecological sites 8

and strengthen the cultivation of their species to protect local wild endangered species such as black-faced spoonbills and butterflies.

The volunteers have come to the Tai Mo Shan forest, because it is one of the main habitats of fireflies in Hong Kong, with about eight species living in its forests.

Hong Kong has nearly 30 species of fireflies, according to a website run by Yiu Vor from the Hong Kong society of entomology, accounting for one third of the known firefly species in China.

“Fireflies have strict requirements for living conditions. They need clean water and other environmental conditions. In recent years, the number of fireflies in Tai Mo Shan has been decreasing,” Chung said.

On the Tai Po Kau Nature Trail, where in 2008 there were 60 to 70 fireflies, now, there are only 10 fireflies, said Mark Mak Siuung, the curator of Hong Kong firefly Museum, in an interview with Hong Kong Economic Times.

The Chans said the forest was full of rubbish, including plastic bags

n Hong Kong: Mo Shan’s fireflies

Chan Wai-tat and his son collect garbage in Tai Mo Shan.

The Fireflies Watching Code of Conduct in Tai Mo Shan reads ‘do not use torch’ and ‘take your litter home’.

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and glass bottles scattered and hidden amongst the fallen leaves.

with the courtship signals of fireflies, Chung added.

“Last week’s two typhoonsLionrock and Kampasu, brought a lot of garbage,” Chung said, “but the main source of garbage is the habit of many tourists throwing garbage at random.”

After having spent more than an hour, everyone’s baskets were full. The collected garbage was weighed: the volunteers had picked up 45.75 kg of nonrecyclable waste and 20.60kg of recyclable waste.

Hong Kong’s law prohibits littering and violators can be fined $1,500. However, there is very little monitoring in country parks which can lead to accumulation of garbage.

“Garbage on the ground can kill the fireflies’ eggs that are often laid near ponds or gathered leaves on forest floors, the rubbish also pollutes their water and food,” Chung said.

Additionally, flashlights carried by hikers or campers also interfere

“I didn’t expect so much garbage. It’s really shocking. Why can’t people take their garbage away?” Noel Cheung, a volunteer whose job is developing information systems, said.

“Environmental education has always been the primary goal of Green Power. When people have relevant knowledge, their behavior will naturally change,” Chung said.

environment, but we also harvested much knowledge of species that I didn’t know before. I think this activity is very meaningful,” Cheung said.

“My teacher said that we can’t learn all the things from school, I realized why she said so after today’s lesson in nature,” Chan Lok-san said.

“I like my current job very much and feel it is very meaningful. We often encounter many beautiful or rare animals and plants at work, which are a small happiness at work,” Peggy Chung Ceoisaan said.

“Not only did we clean the

Volunteers explain how to separate recyclable and non-recyclable garbage to rubbish-collecting team at Tai Mo Shan.

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Garbage is everywhere in Tai Mo Shan. A recycling bin is filled in just half an hour.

Peggy Chung teaches volunteers about noteworthy species.

Neol is helping to package the garbage.

The volunteers and the garbage they collected.

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“Ghost” nets haunt Hong Kong waters Reported by Malick Gai Edited by Samuel Li

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Harry Chan recovers ghost nets stuffed with fishing hooks, wires and dead coral during a cleanup in Sai Kung.

Photo courtesy: Harry Chan 12

It took Harry Chan Tin-ming and a group of ten divers two hours under the sea in Tai Po to find and haul out 800 kilograms of abandoned fishing nets.

“90 percent of the time I go diving, I see ghost nets and it’s a big problem for marine life including fish, crabs, sea turtles and other marine life,” said Chan.

The large number of abandoned fishing nets, also known as “ghost nets” is alarming and has become a major issue for marine life, its habitats and even for commercial fishermen.

Chan, 68, is known in Hong Kong as the “Ghost net hunter.” He has been diving for over 30 years and started regularly hunting for these nets more than eight years ago. “The ocean is a mystery,” he said.

Ghost nets can be dangerous because marine life becomes entangled, affecting the health of the ocean and even divers

who try removing them. They haunt the oceans and are a major contributor to the wider ocean plastic crisis.

Made from a range of synthetic fibers, including nylon, polystyrene and other plastic compounds, ghost nets can travel vast distances.

“From the biggest fishing nets to the tiniest pellets, plastic pollution is impacting the ocean,” said Dana Winograd, director of operations for Plastic Free Seas.

Plastic Free Seas is a charity focused on education on solution-oriented awareness about plastic pollution in the ocean. It is also involved in regular beach cleanups around Hong Kong.

In October, Winograd and a group of volunteers found ghost nets washed up on beaches in two of their last three beach cleanups at Butterfly Beach, Tuen

Mun and Cheung Sha Lan, Lantau Island.

“It’s not easy to recycle the nets if they have been in the ocean for a long time. Most companies claiming to use recycled fishing nets in their products are only using a very small amount,” said Winograd.

Markus Rummel, a biotechnologist and ocean enthusiast who frequently volunteers in marine science projects, has been a diver for over 16 years. Rummel recently became a diving instructor who educates people on diving and the marine environment.

“Ghost nets entangle and kill animals until they are eventually overgrown by marine life.

Unfortunately there is a constant supply of new nets to the ocean,” said Rummel.

The Hong Kong government banned fish trawling in December 2012, including pair, stern and

A diver rescues a crab caught by a ghost net at about 17m underwater at Shek Ngau Chau in Tai Po. Photo courtesy: Norie Ishida 13

An abandoned ghost net entangled in a coral area in Tung Ping Chau, Mirs Bay. The corals are starting to grow over it, using it as a scaffold.

Photo courtesy: Markus Rummel hang trawling with the aim of protecting precious marine resources and the ecosystem and to allow the damaged seabed and depleted marine resources to recover. Trawling is a destructive form of fishing that hugely impacts the seabed and marine life.

When divers run out of compressor air, especially around the later part of their dive, it can be risky for them to rescue marine life trapped in a ghost net.

“I would not recommend an inexperienced diver to attempt ghost net removal. It requires good buoyancy and control of your movement in the water, otherwise you might get entangled yourself,” said Rummel.

The visibility in Hong Kong waters can be unfavourable sometimes depending on the temperature. Two divers in

the same location can have a different experience of visibility, making it difficult to navigate and recover ghost nets.

Every year, between 500,000 and one million tons of ghost fishing equipment are abandoned in the ocean, according to recent figures from the World Wide Fund for Nature.

“When we go diving, we see small fishing boats, fishermen dumping nets…While side by side, we are preparing our gear to remove their nets. It’s a cycle,” said Norie Ishida, 39, a Japanese diving instructor.

Ishida started diving over 15 years ago and has been diving regularly in Hong Kong for the past five years. “Fishing nets are one of the biggest problems I see underwater that’s hurting marine life in Hong Kong. Animals get trapped, slowly dying in the nets.

(They are) killing coral that takes ages to grow,” said Ishida.

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So Kwai-loi, 66, has been fishing for 40 years. A few years ago, So began selling fish and still remains involved in the fishing community in Sai Kung.

It is not uncommon for fishermen to report seeing ghost nets every couple of days. “In the past, when I began fishing some 40 years ago, there was no such problem like ghost nets. Nets were expensive and were made by hand,” said So. Mass produced fishing nets are cheaper now and cost about HK$200 depending on size and type, and almost everyone can afford to buy one. Old fishing nets can be recycled in mainland China and fishermen can earn about HK$20 depending on the size by recycling them.

“I disagree that professional fishermen would abandon fishing nets in the sea because it could be recycled for some money,

the nets are abandoned by unprofessional people fishing for fun,” said So. “We welcome divers to clean the seabed but don’t take away operating fishing nets. Be aware of them,” said So. It’s not difficult to differentiate between new nets still in operation, and older ghost nets filled with debris.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, more than 38,500 species are under threat of extinction, 28 percent of which includes sharks, rays and coral reefs. The IUCN Red List sets the standards for the classification of species that are at risk of global extinction.

Mike Belshaw, from the United Kingdom, dives with the South China Diving Club in Aberdeen and has been diving in Hong Kong every other week for almost 23 years.

“Fishing nets found around the inland waters of Hong Kong are

indiscriminate, usually catching undersized marine animals and often snagged on the sea bottom, leaving the nets to destroy the marine environment for a very very long time.

They should be banned,” said Belshaw.

Jaden Head, 16, is a professional rowing athlete at the Hong Kong Sports Institute. He is competing in the ‘Around the Island Race’ to raise funds and awareness for the Ocean Recovery Alliance, an NGO focused on entrepreneuring programmes to reduce plastic pollution, both on land and in water, by creating strategic solutions for governments, industry and communities.

“I tend to avoid ghost nets when I see them while rowing. I have tried dragging them to land but they get caught in my hands and I just leave them and go,” said Head.

The abandoned ghost nets that end up breaking down never disappear; they disintegrate into

microplastics over time. Marine life sometimes mistakes them for food which can harm their internal organs and expose them to toxic chemicals.

It’s hard to tell fishermen not to use nets, as they provide their income and their way of life.

“Awareness and education for fishermen on how important it is to recover their nets is needed; there are programmes with incentives to encourage them to dispose of their damaged fishing nets properly,” said Winograd.

Chan was awarded a medal of honour in 2020 by the Hong Kong government in recognition of his dedicated community service, as well as contribution to the promotion of environmental and conservation education.

“I tell my family, if I ever get caught in a ghost net and have no one to rescue me, they should not cry. They should be proud of me for what I love doing. It is a mission,” Chan said.

Norie Ishida at Pak Lap Wan in Sai Kung.

Photo courtesy: Norie Ishida

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Selling expired products to cut food waste Reported by Grace Koo Edited by Stacy Shi

In a corner of The Base, a room where student entrepreneurs can create projects on the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology campus, sits the most popular startup of the year: a vending machine that sells old food.

The vending machine was put there by Ken Chan Chun-kin, a student at HKUST who started an organization with his friends he calls Flash Green as part of a campus entrepreneurship competition in April.

bakeries to the needy when he came up with the idea, he said.

The start-up gets expired food from around 30 suppliers and includes things such as energy bars and vegan snacks.

The vending machine only sells items that include a “best before” date, which means the food can reasonably be expected to retain its quality until then, Chan said, referring to guidelines by the Centre for Food Safety.

change, and it’s not as fresh as it is supposed to be, but it can probably still be eaten,” Alice Lee, a registered nutritionist at Hong Kong Nutritionist Society said. “While the expiry date is about food safety. If it passed the date, food may go off easily and get contaminated.”

Josh Tong, a student at HKUST, has bought food from Flash Green’s machine several times because of the lower price compared to other vending machines.

The machine does not include Flash Green hopes to reduce products with a “use by” “I think the snacks are acceptable Hong Kong’s extreme food waste. date, which is related to food even though they have slightly safety, Chan said, and includes passed their best before dates,” In 2019, 4.04 million tonnes of perishable items such as milk. he said. municipal solid waste made it into Hong Kong landfills with Though food sold after the use Joshua Wong, another HKUST 30% of it food waste, according by date can land a vendor in jail student, said he cannot to the Environmental Protection with a hefty fine, it’s legal to sell distinguish the difference, but Department. food after its best before date, doesn’t buy from the machine according to Hong Kong law. often. “After I noticed that it has Chan was volunteering for a passed its best before date, I food recycling programme that “If a food item just passed its developed an obstacle mentally,” distributes unsold bread from best before date, the quality may he said.

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Flash Green sells energy bars, sweets, snacks and drinks in its vending machine.

“We would like to play it safe so we do not sell products after three months of their best before dates,” Chan said.

Chan and his team try the food products to check the taste before putting them inside the vending machine.

A vending machine at HKUST sells food products that have past the best before date.

In five years, it grew from a standalone store in Kowloon to current six retail branches around the city.

“Unlike traditional retailers, we generally don’t do promotions, sales or other gimmicks, just big labels at a significant discount to the price on the high street, every single day,” GreenPrice wrote on its website.

“If we discover that the chips have become soggy, we do not want our customers to eat them,” he said.

Chan also said Flash Green placed another vending machine The machine sold dozens of at the University of Hong Kong in food products a week last mid-November. month, double the month before, co-founder and chief technology “We hope our machines can be officer of Flash Green, Anson located in colleges around Hong Ting Kai-chung said.

Kong, secondary schools and some districts in the following “But we think it is not enough and one to two years to serve more we want more,” Ting said. people,” Chan said. “And I hope the concept of best before date Flash Green is not the first can be promoted to a wider company to sell old food. Social audience, and more can accept enterprise GreenPrice founded us.” in 2016 had a similar idea selling packaged food and beauty products.

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A packet of snacks by Flash Green months after its best before date.

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“If a food item just passed its best before date, the quality may change, and it’s not as fresh as it is supposed to be, but it can probably still be eaten.”

Alice Lee Registered nutritionist at Hong Kong Nutritionist Society

Anson Ting Kai-chung, the co-founder of Flash Green, shows the food products sold by his company.

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Masks save lives but at what cost to the environment?

Reported by Jayde Cheung Edited by Sara Cheng

In the first hour after Teale Phelps Bondaroff ’s OceanAsia team, a group of marine scientists in Hong Kong since 2019, landed on the southwest Soko Islands in February 2020, they found at least 70 surgical masks.

Since July 2020, under the global pandemic, the Hong Kong government has made masks compulsory in all public areas. In an online survey conducted by local charitable environment group Greeners Action in October last year, 92% of the 1,095 interviewees wore disposable masks mostly, with half of them throwing away seven to ten masks a week.

Environmental researchers and advocates warn of the potential damage to Hong Kong.

“There are two things we are noticing. The first one is that masks are starting to be found in parts and pieces,” said Bondaroff, OceanAsia’s director.

Research results published by

his group in July on amounts of microfibres released by masks.

A three-layer surgical mask has a waterproof layer, a barrier to germs and a layer for moisture absorption, all of which contain plastic, according to Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection.

Bondaroff explained that it takes an average of 450 years for a mask to decompose and break into smaller fragments known as microplastics.

“Once microplastics are in the environment, you can’t really get rid of it,” he said.

Another problem is “absorption,” he said, meaning the smell of chemicals, algae and microorganisms stick to the surfaces of masks. Animals then mistake the masks for food and that leads to starvation, poisoning and death.

When people discard their masks improperly, or when bins or

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garbage trucks are left open, the masks can be blown around and end up in the wild, he said.

“We desperately need to stop the flow of plastic,” Bondaroff added.

Throughout the epidemic, the government has been working on waste reduction projects such as the “Green Hiking Etiquette Campaign”. It is a collaboration with four local non-profit-making organisations in which “green ambassadors” spread messages of leaving no trash at five popular hiking spots, the Environmental Protection Department told The Young Reporter in an email reply.

The EPD also appointed officers to monitor garbage disposal at over 150 coastal destinations between January and September this year, while intensifying efforts to clean up contaminated areas like Soko Islands.

From early 2020 till mid-2021, three trillion masks were dumped

in the landfills in Hong Kong, equivalent to the weight of 1,500,000 plastic bottles, said Yip Tsui-man, assistant project manager of Greeners Action.

Composed of mixed materials, including non-woven fabric, manmade fabric, nylon elastic bands and metallic strips, marks can hardly be recycled, she said.

Asked if it is possible to convert them into chairs, goggles and stationeries - like what Korean student Haneul Kim and French company Plaxtil do - Yip said that requires machinery and land, in addition to high labour costs.

“Hong Kong does not have advanced technology for recycling, nor do we have any ‘authorised hygienic skills’ to do so,” said Yip. “At this stage, used masks in Hong Kong can only end their journey in landfills,” she added.

In July, Greeners Action tested the level of protection of 20 types of reusable masks. Half of them scored over 95% for Bacterial Filtration Efficiency and Particle Filtration Efficiency, equivalent to Level 1 of the American Society for Testing Materials’ filtering standards.

While the degree of filtration of reusable masks is not comparable to surgical masks, they can be an alternative for visiting low-risk places such as transportation and school, Yip said.

Greeners Action also invited six surgical mark users to shift to the reusable ones for 12 days in November 2020. Four of them said they would choose reusable masks over surgical masks at the end of the experiment.

In view of the positive response, the organisation held a forum with businesses including Cathay Pacific Airways, Bank of East Asia and The Salvation Army, to promote reusable masks in the workplace in July this year.

“We hope the real experiences eliminate misunderstandings of reusable masks,” said Yip. The group also convinced some surgical mask suppliers to shift to manufacturing reusable masks, Yip said, as a way to raise the market share of environmentallyfriendly products that keep humans safe.

variants,” said Yip. “Reusable masks should be a solution when we have to live with masks, rather than using disposable ones everyday.”

Aware of the damage that surgical masks pose to the environment, Emma Leung, a 19-year-old student, switches to reusable marks occasionally when she is in a small crowd. That saves her one to two disposable marks a week.

“The fabric of the reusable mask is softer and more breathable than surgical masks,” she said.

Individual’s choice of masks is often blamed for plastic pollution, but both the government and mask manufacturers should be held accountable, Mr. Bondaroff said.

“You need the policies, because the market will not take care of that problem,” he said. “You have to have an aggressive government approach.”

“It is uncertain when the pandemic will end, or if new waves of Covid-19 cases will emerge, or if there are more

“Reusable masks should be a solution when we have to live with masks, rather than using disposable ones everyday.”

Yip Tsui-man

Assistant project manager of Greeners Action

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Green groups promote online shopping to reduce packaging Reported by Tracy Leung Edited by Esten Amalvy Green groups urge broadscale enterprises to reduce their excessive packaging and promote the city’s green online shops that target waste reduction.

A survey conducted by local green group, Green Sense, estimated that 780 million pieces of plastic packaging used for online shopping orders in Hong Kong in 2020.

On average, the amount of plastic produced every day is equivalent in weight to about 90 double-decker buses. The online shopping trend in Hong Kong is growing. According to a survey conducted by Mastercard in 2018, 94.7 percent of 8,610 respondents in Hong Kong made at least one online purchase in the previous three months, a 6.7 percent increase from the previous year.

“Because of this serious packaging issue, we try to promote green online shopping to businesses,” said Polly Ma Ka-po, the project director of “Green Online Shopping” launched by Green Sense.

Ma said many online stores provide “free shipping after purchase at a certain price” as a means to attract customers to buy more.

“We are worried that overconsumption will produce more packaging garbage in the future,” she added.

According to a survey on overpackaging conducted by Green Sense in May to June 2021, 2.32 pieces of packaging were used for each product at 10 parcel collection stations operated by SF Express, one of the largest couriers in Hong Kong.

“I am not happy with SF express.

When we pack the products ourselves, they will still unwrap the packages and use their packing bags and boxes,” said Carmen Kam, the owner of a green online shop, Love & Cherish.

Kam said she would reuse the plastic bags and boxes collected from her customers and mail the products through Hong Kong Post which requires simple packaging only.

“It’s hard to approach the logistics companies and get them to agree. They always use multiple layers for packaging because they are afraid of damaging the goods,” Ma said.

“Actually, the customers don’t want too much packaging but they usually can’t find a way to tell the logistics company,” she added.

Hong Kong’s largest couriers SF Express uses nine types of different packaging materials.

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SF Express has declined to comment on the issue.

According to Green Sense’s list, there are 33 green online shops which are committed to implementing at least three environmental protection measures.

Those include the use of reusable and recyclable packaging materials and recycling boxes or recycle bags for delivery.

“They have difficulties with the sorting process, for example, some of the packages are hard to reuse, and need to bring them to the recycling factory for polishing. This consumes too much time for them,” Ma said.

According to the government, 2,320 tonnes of plastic were sent to Hong Kong’s landfills daily in 2019. Just 77,100 tonnes of plastics were recycled that year.

There is no funding from the government to subsidize the green online enterprises in Hong Kong.

“We are different from the other business enterprises, we are just motivated by our environmental beliefs and try if it(green online shops) works in Hong Kong,” said Thomas Ng, the director of Green 360, a green online shop.

Ng said it is hard to get people to know about green online shops as they are not common in Hong Kong.

During the Pandemic, more people choose to shop online,

this provides an opportunity for the green online shops to promote their goods.

“We rely on online advertising through Facebook, Instagram, and Google, and we get in touch with every customer ourselves, they would consistently buy our products after building relationships with them,” Ng said.

Green 360 has provided incentives for customers who bring back the used containers for recycling. The shop would mail recyclables back to the foreign suppliers.

“We couldn’t make a profit actually, as many people know green products are usually expensive since Hong Kong manufacturers would not target the green market,” Ng said.

Green 360 imported products from foreign countries like New Zealand and Australia which put greater emphasis on manufacturing environmentally friendly products.

“Even though we import highquality green products, it is hard to compete with the large enterprises like the HKTVmall,” Ng said.

HKTVmall has established itself as the largest online shopping mall in Hong Kong. In the first half-year of 2021, HKTVmall’s total order amount reached HK$3.40 billion, the number of customers hit a record of more than 480,000 a month, according to the local media.

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HKTV mall indicated it used recyclable blue plastic boxes or recycled paper boxes for delivery, but no instructions were given to its cooperative merchants which sell products through its platform.

“I receive seven boxes from seven companies in a single online shopping purchase through HKTV mall, I think it’s too wasted since I won’t use these boxes,” said Law Yi-yan, a regular customer of HKTV mall.

The HKTVMall could not be reached for comment.

“We encourage Hongkongers to think before they go online shopping, if it’s necessary then only buy what they need, they could also reuse the paper boxes or bring the recyclables to the recycling points,” Ma said.

The public consultation on the Scheme on Regulation of Disposable Plastic is ongoing, Green Sense said they would urge the government to put the regulation of packaging issues on the agenda.

“It takes time for the customers to change their consumption pattern, the customers can actually take the initiative to tell the merchants not to give them excessive layers of packaging,” Ng said.

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