Plastic waste created by Hong Kong’s 21-day hotel quarantine – what can be done to cut down the mountainous amounts?
- During a recent three-week stay, one guest attempted to limit his plastic wastage as much as possible – with mixed results
- Some hotels are doing what they can to help, such as by providing reusable cutlery and limiting non-essential items like toothbrushes to being on request only
As Hong Kong marches towards its seventh quarantine cycle for returning residents (with approved hotels now numbering 44, up from 40), one quantifiable problem remains clear: the use and disposal of plastic items by hotel guests, which environmental group The Green Earth estimates has already surpassed 100 million pieces.
But not all trash is plastic. While spending a recent three weeks at the Hong Kong government’s pleasure at the Ovolo Southside hotel, Wong Chuk Hang, I did what I considered the right thing and largely stopped the ingress of plastic items to my room.
The plastic items already inside on arrival (water bottles, television remote control wrappings, coffee sachets) plus those delivered in the first few days (plastic cups, lids for paper cups, condiments pots) and those dropped off by friends already amounted to 65 individual pieces being deposited in a nearby recycling bin after checkout.
But the sacrifices made in the pursuit of a zero-plastic personal policy were not onerous. Ordering beer (aluminium can) instead of wine (plastic cup) during happy hour, cutting out fruit juice, going without milk and boiling water in the kettle provided, then refilling the original water bottles, meant almost no more plastic found its way into the room for 17 days.
