A deluge of trash from takeaway containers and disposable cutlery is cluttering the streets and parks of Hong Kong as coronavirus restrictions on dining in restaurants eat away at the city’s capacity to dispose of its garbage. | reuters
“For many people, the biggest issue is they don’t deal with their own waste on a daily basis so they aren’t realising the scale of their own consumption,” said Tracey Read, founder of Plastic Free Seas in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong’s government said existing landfills will reach capacity this year and in June it announced it was disposing of human graves to further extend one site. “Emerging food delivery online platforms are definitely one of the contributors exacerbating the severity of the problem,” said June Wong, an executive at WWF Hong Kong who focuses on marine litter and plastic.
The government is promoting minimizing the use of disposable tableware “wherever practicable,” such as not asking for plastic bags or disposable tableware when ordering takeaways, an official said.A waste charging bill, proposed over a decade ago and aimed at tackling soaring waste, was put off the legislative agenda again in June due to time constraints.