(12 May 2025, SCMP) To tackle the plastic waste crisis, degradable plastic and non-plastic products have been widely promoted as an eco-friendly alternative to single-use plastic. Some businesses are even willing to pay more for degradable packaging. However, degradable plastic products are also problematic; oxo-degradable plastics, for example, are bad for the environment as they degrade into harmful microplastics. Although Hong Kong finally banned such plastics last year, we have found that packaging and bags made of them are still widely used (“70 Hong Kong retailers allegedly sold oxo-degradable plastics despite ban: NGO”, April 22).
I recently came across another kind of supposedly green packaging. The maker claimed the product does not contain plastic and can be dissolved by soaking it in hot water at 90 degrees Celsius or above, and the solution can be poured harmlessly down the drain. I wonder if people would really take the trouble to boil water in a big pot to soak all this packaging until it is dissolved. Even if they did, wouldn’t this create a bigger problem if the fish and other marine species in our oceans ended up swallowing dissolved packaging?
Plastic waste has become a serious ecological and health threat. Businesses have adopted different ways to address this. Some sectors, such as the beverage industry, have embraced recycling, while others, including the food service industry, prefer using degradable tableware. Both these approaches are not good solutions. While recycling is necessary, it has its limits. First, recycling is costly. Second, its take-up rate is too low to make a difference. Third, a common practice today is downcycling, meaning that the material derived from the recycling process has a lower quality than the original items.
Instead of placing our hopes in recycling and the use of degradable plastics, we should seek to avoid, reduce at source and reuse. Our excessive use of plastic, coupled with heavy reliance on single-use plastics, is the crux of the problem. We must ditch our addiction to single-use plastics, slash plastic production at source and develop genuine plastic-free and harmless alternatives.
Edwin Lau Che-feng, executive director,
The Green Earth