Category: 3. Business

More than a year after implementing the first phase of the single-use plastics ban, Hong Kong restaurateurs are lamenting the lack of suitable alternative materials. As the city’s problem with plastic waste persists, the government can learn from successful international case studies and accelerate the adoption of proper plastic alternatives to achieve a plastic-free future.

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The implementation of a two-phase ban on single-use plastics in Hong Kong has taken a hit, as the city struggles to find alternatives.

Last month, Secretary for the Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan said on Commercial Radio that the government is looking to launch a trial campaign with selected restaurants within two months to test alternative products and provide feedback to suppliers for improvement.
“We will implement the second phase of the legislation only when the alternative product technology is more mature,” Tse told iCable in June. “It is difficult to require everyone to use their own utensils when buying take-away food, we need to find suitable alternatives before we continue with phase two,” he added.

Two-Phase Ban

The Legislative Council passed the Product Eco-responsibility (Amendment) Bill for regulating disposable plastic tableware and other plastic products in October 2023. 

The first phase prohibits the sale or supply of styrofoam tableware, disposable plastic tableware such as straws, stirrers, cutlery, and plates, as well as the supply of cups, cup lids, food containers, and food container lids to dine-in and take-out customers in catering establishments. In the second phase, the supply and sale of all of the above plastic tableware in Hong Kong will be forbidden. 

At the same time, hotels and guesthouses are banned from providing free disposable toiletries and grooming products (including rubber-handled toothbrushes, toothpaste, shower caps, razors, nail files, combs, and any liquid products stored in disposable plastic containers), as well as free disposable water in plastic bottles in rooms. The second phase will further prohibit the sale and free supply of multipack rings, table cloths, and plastic stemmed dental floss, and the distribution of free earplugs.

The manufacturing, supply and sale of oxidizable biodegradable plastic products – plastics that cannot be completely decomposed – have also been prohibited since the first phase was implemented in April 2024.

Businesses failing to comply with the regulation will be issued a notice and fined $2,000 if they have not taken action within 21 days from the notice. Repeated offences may result in fines of up to HK$100,000. 

More than 19% of the 3.97 million tonnes of municipal solid waste disposed of at Hong Kong’s landfills in 2023 was plastic waste, a 10.5% decrease from the year prior, according to Environmental Protection Department (EPD) figures. Meanwhile, the quantity of plastic recycled locally rose from 119,900 tonnes in 2022 to 126,600 tonnes in 2023 – but still represented only 6.5% of the total waste.

Other Initiatives

To counter the rising plastic problem in the city, the EPD in 2021 also rolled out a Reverse Vending Machine pilot scheme for collecting plastic beverage containers, which was subsequently expanded to 120 machines scattered across all 18 Hong Kong districts. The machines offer a HK$0.10 rebate for each plastic beverage container returned. Customers need to register an account, and can return a maximum of 30 containers per day. 

“The machine is effective and does not require a huge monetary incentive. The refund of 10 cents for each plastic bottle is already attractive enough for the public to be willing to recycle,” Tse said in February. 

As of last month, the scheme had collected 179 million containers, which are sent to local recyclers, saving more than 6.7 million kilograms of carbon emission, according to EPD data.

However, some critics have argued that the incentive is too low. According to Robert Kelman, Director at Reloop Pacific, an international non-profit that tackles packaging waste throughout the Pacific, the HK$0.10 rebate – the lowest in the world for such a program – is “virtually meaningless” to most Hong Kong consumers. He further argued that the low number of plastic bottles received at the recycling centres is disincentivizing recycling companies to invest in the scheme. 

For Kelman, a scheme cannot succeed unless it is both convenient to consumers and offers an adequate refund value.

“I’m not sure which studies Tse was referring to when he said the rebate of 10 HK cents (1.3 US cents) was ‘attractive enough’ after lawmakers raised doubts about the effectiveness of such a rebate,” said Edwin Lau Che-feng, Executive Director of local environmental organization Green Earth. “Why not use a deposit approach in light of successful cases around the world, some of which have achieved a recovery rate of more than 90 per cent?” 

Lau was referring to so-called Deposit Refund Schemes (DRSs), which apply an initial deposit, or “tax”, on the purchase, which is then returned to the consumer upon proper recycling. 

More than 40 countries around the world have implemented DRSs. Slovakia, for example, requires consumers to pay a deposit of €0.15 (HK$1.37) for packaged beverages. The scheme, launched in 2022, resulted in a recovery rate of 70% in the first year. Similarly, Germany imposes deposits on glass and plastic beverage containers ranging between €0.08 and €0.25 (HK$0.73-2.28) and in 2022, it was able to achieve a 98.4% return rate. 

“The authorities should realise that had they taken the deposit approach, coupled with a higher deposit value than the current rebate of 10 HK cents, producers, with retailers’ support, would have no trouble reaching a recovery rate higher than the suggested initial targets of 10 per cent for drink cartons and 30 per cent for plastic bottles,” said Lau.

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Plastic-Free Matters

Plastics take 400 years to decompose – and even then, they do not fully disappear but rather break down into tiny particles known as  microplastics. According to Greenpeace East Asia, 97% of Hong Kong’s riverine waste is plastic, of which more than 70% is food, logistics and beverage packaging as well as disposable tableware. 

In 2021, Greenpeace found microplastics in Hong Kong’s countryside streams for the first time, and last year, it detected microplastics in the feces of countryside mammals.

“Country streams are at the front end of the entire water cycle. The fact that they are contaminated by microplastics is a major warning sign that plastic pollution in urban rivers and oceans may be even more serious,” said Tam Wing-lam, the Greenpeace’s Project Director. She warned that microplastics can contaminate the water system, threatening public health.

Christelle Not, Senior Lecturer of Department of Earth Sciences in University of Hong Kong, said Greenpeace’s findings demonstrated that wildlife can still take up microplastics from the environment even when they are far away from urban areas and human activities.

Microplastics carry harmful additives and toxins that can damage the nervous, immune and endocrine systems when they accumulate in the food chain and enter the human body. Exposure to plastics and microplastics is linked to chronic diseases such as diabetes, developmental disorder, cancers, birth defects, and endocrine disruption.

Plastic is also detrimental to animals. Sea animals like turtles often mistake plastic for food, but their bodies are unable to digest it. They can become entangled, leading to injuries and even death. 

A research team at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) found that micro beads, manufactured micro plastics used in products ranging from facial scrubs to toothpastes, ending up in the digestive tracts of fish and other marine creatures can affect their growth and development. 
“Despite all the adverse impacts these minute plastic pollutants have on the marine ecosystems, they are still being used in many personal care products around the world – including here in Hong Kong,” said Karen Chan, Assistant Professor from the Division of Life Science at HKUST and study lead.

Finding Alternatives

The most common plastic substitutes in Hong Kong include paper, bamboo, wood, and plant-based fibers such as wood pulp, grass pulp, and bagasse. Among these, paper and bagasse are the most widely used in both tableware and daily accessories due to their eco-friendliness and practicality. 

While considered more eco-friendly than plastic, paper packaging manufacturing is still associated with carbon dioxide emissions and extensive water usage. According to local environmental NGO Friends of the Earth, producing one tonne of paper generates approximately 950 kilograms of carbon dioxide and requires 2,700 litres of water. Still, contrary to plastic, paper is a natural, biological, and in most cases renewable material, making it a better alternative.  

The Hong Kong Consumer Council also reported in 2022 that perfluorinated and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) were detected in 23 samples of bagasse-based vegetable fibre tableware, with some paper drinking straws exceeding the European Union’s safe limits. 

PFAS – better known as forever chemicals – are synthetic chemicals used in the manufacture of heat-, oil-, and water-resistant coatings for products like nonstick cookware or waterproof clothes. They are associated with increased risk of certain cancers, including prostate, kidney, and testicular cancers, and found to reduce the body’s immune system’s ability to fight off infections.

In 2023, researchers from the University of Antwerp in Belgium who examined 39 different types of straws (paper, glass, bamboo, stainless steel, plastic) discovered that PFAS was present in 90% of paper straws and 80% of bamboo straws. 75% of all tested plastic straws also contained PFAS.

The cost of non-plastic tableware is also one of the factors that restaurants need to take into account. According to the Environmental Protection Department, the price difference between the lowest-priced disposable plastic product option and its lowest-priced alternative is still relatively large, ranging from HK$0.12 to HK$0.68.

However, costs are expected to decrease as demand, and consequently production, ramp up, said Simon Wong Ka-wo, President of the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades. 

Some restaurant owners or customers were also unhappy about the quality of alternative options. “If you’re walking home with your takeaway order in this box, that’d be fine. But if you have to drive, then that wouldn’t work,” the owner of a Shanghainese restaurant, who is surnamed Lee, told Hong Kong Free Press last April. 

“It literally takes two sips [before] the [paper] straw starts getting soggy, and the forks don’t even work!” said one of his customers.

At the end of the day, neither recycling nor switching to biodegradable tableware is the best solution, environmentalists argue. 

“Instead of placing our hopes in recycling and the use of degradable plastics, we should seek to avoid, reduce at source and reuse,” said Lau. “We must ditch our addiction to single-use plastics, slash plastic production at source and develop genuine plastic-free and harmless alternatives.” 

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons.

Japan Data

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Jul 7, 2025

A survey in Japan found that 32% of companies there said that they had experienced a cyberattack.

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Trump has made his lack of support for EVs no secret, and his newly implemented ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ led to the nation’s US$7500 (A$11,450) tax credit for battery-powered cars being repealed.

As reported by Nikkei Asia, this has spelt bad news for Honda, which the publication claims has cancelled plans for one of its three upcoming EVs, specifically a large SUV originally due to launch in the US in 2027.

Honda hasn’t shown off a concept of the large SUV, only its mid-size SUV and sedan counterparts, which were previewed by the 0 SUV and 0 Saloon concepts earlier this year. Both of these models are reportedly still set to launch in North America from 2026.

While SUVs account for approximately 60 per cent of all vehicle sales in the US – Honda’s largest market globally – large SUVs aren’t as popular as their mid-size alternatives, and the axing of the federal tax credit has made Honda’s electric offering unviable.

It’s not known how affected Honda’s plan to launch seven EVs in the US from its upcoming 0 Series will be, due to the reported cancellation of the large SUV.

The report comes just over a month after Honda itself announced it was unlikely to meet its previous EV sales estimation of 30 per cent by 2030.

“Due to the recent market slowdown, the Honda EV sales ratio in 2030 is now expected to fall below the previously announced target of 30 per cent,” the carmaker announced in May.

“In light of this outlook, Honda is reassessing its EV strategy and roadmap, including plans for the EV product lineup and the timing of relevant investments including one to build a comprehensive EV value chain in Canada.

Honda walks back EV sales goals

“In the meantime, there is no change in the Honda position that EVs are the optimal solution to achieve carbon neutrality of passenger vehicles. Therefore, Honda will steadily carry out initiatives being undertaken to prepare for the future EV shift at the appropriate timing.”

While Honda hasn’t said how much further below the 30 per cent target it expects to be, it had previously committed 10 trillion Yen ($108 billion) towards EV development until early 2032.

This investment was subsequently reduced to seven trillion Yen ($75 billion), with some of that reduction understood to be from postponing its Canadian EV value chain.

Honda had previously earmarked CAD$15 billion (A$16.75 billion) to establish an EV assembly and battery plant in Ontario for the North American market, with the facility to be shared with a joint venture partner.

US President Donald Trump on Sunday mocked billionaire Elon Musk’s plan to launch a new political party, calling it “ridiculous” and saying it would only create more confusion. Musk recently announced the formation of the America Party in the US.

“I think it’s ridiculous to start a third party,” Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, en route to the White House. “Starting a third party just adds to confusion. He can have fun with it, but I think it’s ridiculous.”

He added, “Third parties have never worked. He can have fun with it.”

Further taking a dig at Musk, once a close ally of the president, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social:

“I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks. He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States – The System seems not designed for them. The one thing Third Parties are good for is the creation of Complete and Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS, and we have enough of that with the Radical Left Democrats, who have lost their confidence and their minds!”

Trump also accused Elon Musk of seeking special favors by asking him to nominate Musk’s friend, Jared Isaacman, as NASA administrator. After Musk left his role as a special government employee during Trump’s administration, Isaacman’s nomination was withdrawn.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump’s treasury secretary said Musk should focus on running his businesses instead of getting involved in politics. This came a day after Musk, the world’s richest person and a former White House adviser, announced he was launching a new political party.

“The principles of Doge were very popular—but if you looked at the polling, Elon was not,” Scott Bessent said on CNN’s State of the Union. He was referring to the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (nicknamed “Doge”), which Musk briefly led at the start of Trump’s second term.

Polls showed that Doge—and Musk’s aggressive budget cuts and layoffs in the federal government—were deeply unpopular. Bessent noted that investors in Musk’s companies, such as Tesla, which saw declining sales during Musk’s government involvement, wanted him to return to focusing on his businesses.

“So I believe the boards of his companies wanted him back to focus on running those businesses,” Bessent said. “I imagine those boards weren’t happy about his announcement yesterday and will urge him to stick to business, not politics.”

Bessent’s comments came after Musk followed through on his promise to form a new party and accused his former ally Trump of “bankrupting” the country with a massive tax-and-spending bill.

Musk announced his new party, called the America Party, in a series of posts late Saturday and early Sunday on X, the social media platform he owns.

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South-east Asia is rapidly growing as a critical link in global supply chains as manufacturers rush to shift production from China amid an escalating trade war. It is also fast emerging as a focal point for new data centres as demand for AI surges.

Yet, as the economies attract billions of dollars in investments from the energy-consuming industries that are also increasingly demanding greener power, investment into renewables is sorely lacking. 

South-east Asia accounts for only 2 per cent of global clean energy spending even though it accounts for 5 per cent of global energy demand, according to the International Energy Agency. For every dollar invested in fossil fuels in the region, about 80 cents go to clean energy — far lower than the global ratio of nearly 2:1 in favour of clean energy, the IEA says. 

Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries in the region have set out ambitious climate targets — most want to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 — but there remains a massive investment gap. The region generates nearly three-quarters of its power from fossil fuels, and is still building new coal plants. 

The IEA estimates south-east Asia will need to spend $190bn annually by 2030 to meet its climate goals — five times the current level.

The US withdrawal in March from a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), a multilateral climate financing programme that promised $45bn for three countries, has come as a much-needed reminder to south-east Asian countries that they cannot just rely on external financing. Indonesia and Vietnam are major recipients, along with South Africa. 

“[JETP and other multilateral programmes] cannot be solely relied upon . . . which is why governments should focus on finding solutions that can catalyse private investments,” says Amy Kong, a researcher at Zero Carbon Analytics. She says multilateral financing, which has played a big role in climate financing in the region, is slowing as President Trump retreats from climate goals and reduces US aid globally, but bilateral public finance could help.

While the JETP and other multilateral agreements remain a viable source of funding, they offer a fraction of the investment needed. Experts say south-east Asian countries should undertake extensive policy reforms to create a conducive environment for investment in renewables.  

“The private sector will be the main source of finance. However, they will not go in alone,” says Grant Hauber, strategic energy finance adviser for Asia at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “What they need support for is the government policies and the fiscal environment that is created around those policies.”

Hauber says there is a mismatch between countries’ climate goals and policy frameworks that make renewable investments unviable. 

Indonesia, the region’s biggest economy, is a good example. Last November, President Prabowo Subianto said Indonesia would achieve net zero emissions by 2050 — bringing forward an earlier target by 10 years. He also vowed to phase out Indonesia’s coal plants by 2040. The country is one of the world’s largest carbon emitters.

But Indonesia continues to allow new coal plants to be built. It also continues to impose a price ceiling on coal sold to power plants, essentially subsidising the fossil fuel and making it far cheaper than alternatives. 

As a result, Indonesia has been one of the laggards in clean energy adoption. Government data shows investment in Indonesia’s renewable energy sector totalled $1.5bn in 2023, and it has stayed around the same level for the past six years. 

“Indonesia is not competitive enough compared to the other countries based on the renewables capacity installed and policy developments,” says Shabrina Nadhila, Asia energy analyst at think-tank Ember. “The government needs to level the playing field for gas, coal and renewables.” 

Indonesia’s energy minister Bahlil Lahadalia recently said Jakarta would retire coal plants early if it could get below-market loans from donors.

Other developing countries have also called for more concessional finance to speed energy transition. And, in fact, that has been one of the sticking points of the JETP programme. 

JETP has been criticised by recipient countries for not offering enough grants or concessional loans, and relying too much on loans at market rates. Only a fraction of the promised funds has been disbursed so far. 

However, despite the US withdrawal from the programme, other partner countries have promised to make it work. Germany stepped in immediately as the co-lead in the Indonesian JETP plan — the largest of the three at $20bn.

IEEFA’s Hauber said the US withdrawal could actually help JETP progress as US climate policies have recently prioritised oil and gas drilling, and increasing LNG exports. Its continued involvement may have led to delays, he says. “So if anything, a stumbling block has been removed with the US decision to leave.”

But south-east Asian governments still have to remove policy ambiguity and help the private sector. 

Ember’s Shabrina says governments could offer guarantees, de-risking instruments or co-finance early stage projects for newer technologies to help draw private companies. “The bottom line is policy consistency and effective governance are key to building investor confidence,” she says. 

Xi Jinping’s economic and industrial planners in Beijing are hammering out the final details of China’s new climate change targets. 

Given that China is responsible for about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, these targets, mandated by the 2015 Paris Agreement, hold the potential to shape the future of the world’s fight against global warming.

The Chinese leader said in April that the country would announce its 2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), covering all economic sectors and all greenhouse gases, before this autumn’s UN Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil.

“However the world may change, China will not slow down its climate actions, will not reduce its support for international co-operation, and will not cease its efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind,” Xi said, in a thinly veiled criticism of President Donald Trump’s administration, which has drastically rolled back US climate change commitments. 

According to analysis published in June by US think-tank the Asia Society Policy Institute, China must hit peak emissions immediately and reduce them by 30 per cent from current levels by 2035 to align with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the average global temperature rise to 1.5C this century and to make the country’s 2060 carbon neutrality goal achievable.

However, when it comes to the headline target in Beijing’s NDC, many climate campaigners are bracing for a low level of ambition, possibly a 2035 emission reduction goal of 10-15 per cent, according to Yao Zhe, Greenpeace’s Beijing-based global policy adviser.

And some observers, cognisant that China’s emissions targets, by the numbers, are likely to disappoint, are instead calling for the world’s biggest polluting nation to strike a tone of ambition.

Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society, says the “landing zone” for China’s future climate target is likely to have already been decided by Beijing, and is “very much determined by the energy, political, and economic realities”.

However, Li is optimistic that the NDC could be framed as a “floor” with an “upward-moving spirit”, meaning that as technology allows or economic conditions improve, then the commitments could be enhanced and, in the end, deliver more than is “put on paper”.

“This will be a very nuanced decision-making process . . . In addition to the headline target, there could be many different elements and numerical targets in China’s NDC,” says Li, who is also a veteran of global climate negotiations.

Many experts acknowledge that the development of the new NDC targets has been complicated by a range of problems which make economic growth — and therefore also emissions trajectories — very difficult to predict.

At home, business and consumer confidence remain weak, having failed to bounce back after the dual shocks of China’s rigid pandemic response and the deleveraging of the country’s property market. And abroad, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s attacks on Iran are driving fears over energy security just as Donald Trump’s trade war threatens the profitability of China’s exporters.

Against that backdrop, Greenpeace’s Yao suggests that Beijing could offer more ambitious sectoral targets, including in areas such as transport sector electrification, renewable energy installations and other technologies that enable faster decarbonisation.

“This ambition could sustain confidence in the market and also guide investment going forward,” she says.

Indeed, in a report published in June, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Creca), a Helsinki-based group, highlighted that if ambitious policy targets were included in both the NDC and China’s next five-year economic plan, due to be released next year, China’s clean energy industries could double in value by 2035. This, the research suggested, could add as much as Rmb15tn ($2.1tn) to the Chinese economy and deliver the 30 per cent emissions reduction needed to meet the Paris targets. 

“Weak targets, by contrast, risk slowing China’s momentum, creating uncertainty, and missing a historic opportunity to lead the global energy transition,” noted Belinda Schäpe, China Policy Analyst at Creca and one of the authors of the report.

As it stands, Beijing’s current climate targets and policies are “highly insufficient”, according to Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific project that tracks the government’s action against the Paris Agreement.

Coal remains the paramount hurdle. Despite the costs of renewable energy and battery storage plummeting in recent years, support for coal persists from vested power sector interests and broader fears over potential economic losses from electricity system instability and social issues resulting from mine and power plant closures.

CAT argues that China needs to integrate “clear targets for coal consumption reduction” in the updated NDC as well as introducing an absolute emissions cap.

Greenpeace’s Yao agreed that while Beijing might not budge from its previously stated commitment to hit peak coal during the period of the 15th Five Year Plan, from 2026-2030, more clarity could be given in the NDC, defining at least “when” the peak will be hit and “how high”.

For many years, international engagement helped propel China’s climate agenda, including by Europe in the lead up to Xi’s blockbuster dual carbon commitment in 2021 — of peak carbon by 2030 and neutrality by 2060 — and by the US ahead of Beijing’s 2023 promise to track and reduce harmful methane emissions.

Over the past two years, while Beijing has continued to rapidly build out renewable energy, there has been concern that it has not done enough to cut coal use. And experts are now also worried that a breakdown in ties between major global powers — including Europe, the US and China — is harming the chances that foreign interlocutors can influence Beijing’s decision making.

“It’s certainly true that no one can just easily sway Beijing and increasingly in recent years the trend is that the space for influence is becoming more limited,” says Li, of the Asia Society Policy Institute. But he adds: “That does not mean that there is just not space or that international engagement doesn’t matter, or doesn’t carry any value.”

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