Hong Kong counts down to single-use plastic ban, but loophole allows people to still buy throwaway items online. Will they?

“The kids are entertained. They also have a good workout and great fun,” he said.

The first stage comes into force on April 22, with a ban on the distribution or sale of single-use items such as glow sticks, thunder sticks, plastic toothpicks and plastic-stemmed cotton buds.

Restaurants will no longer be allowed to offer styrofoam products and throwaway plastic utensils, including knives, forks, spoons, swizzle sticks and straws, for dine-in or takeaway.

They are also banned from giving dine-in customers single-use plastic cups and boxes.

A date is still to be set for the second phase, when disposable plastic tablecloths, single-use plastic gloves and plastic floss picks will be banned.

The Environmental Protection Department said the changes did not target individual users, but only businesses – including bricks-and-mortar shops and online stores.

“The controlled products are either items with well-developed substitutes on the market or not everyday necessities,” a spokeswoman said.

“It will not be illegal for residents to buy controlled throwaway plastic products from websites overseas or in mainland China, or bring them back when travelling, for personal use.”

Environmentalists and lawmakers warned that even as the city moved towards a reduction in plastic use, online shopping platforms could become a loophole for people to continue buying the banned items.

‘Huge cost, minimal effect’

A check by the Post found that, although some major retailers had begun to clear their shelves of plastic items covered by the ban, others had not and people could still buy them online.

Personal care chains Mannings and Watsons appear to have stopped selling glow sticks, plastic-stemmed cotton buds and plastic toothpicks.

Supermarket chains Wellcome and ParknShop did not offer glow sticks online and their cotton buds were labelled as being 100 per cent paper.

But digital marketplace HKTVmall was selling 20 types of glow sticks, all in clearance sales.

It also had at least five brands of cotton buds, all identified as parallel-imported items, and did not say what they were made of.

Online supermarket Pandamart, operated by food delivery platform Foodpanda, did not offer glow sticks and its only brand of cotton buds was in line with the new law.

Stephanie Chan, 37, a customer services officer, said she had shopped online at Amazon and Taobao, the Chinese digital marketplace, for at least a decade, and had bought everything from designer handbags to everyday household goods.

When she learned on social media that Hong Kong was going to ban some plastic items, she started to stockpile plastic floss picks and other goods.

Chan added she did not like environmentally friendly substitutes supplied with dine-in or takeaway food.

“There is always a funky, unappetising odour in single-use wood products,” Chan maintained.

“When you use them to eat your food, you get nothing but the wood taste.”

Hong Kong ban on single-use plastic tableware to start on April 22 next year

Chan said that unless single-use plastic products were treated like illicit drugs and cigarettes, people would always get what they wanted from overseas online shopping sites and on the mainland.

“There are many things the government just can’t control,” she added.

Chan said that it was hard to alter people’s preferences or their feeling that plastic products were “more hygienic”.

Andrew Lam Siu-lo, a lawmaker, highlighted that a citywide ban would not eradicate throwaway plastics if non-city services and cross-border online retail platforms were not also included.

Steven Chan Wing-kit, an assistant environmental affairs manager at NGO The Green Earth, agreed the online loophole was hard to plug.

“It will not be practical for customs officials to check every parcel arriving in Hong Kong,” he said. “There is basically no solution to prevent such cross-border shipments. The cost is huge, but the effect is minimal.”

Green Sense, another NGO, said a 2021 market survey by online payment service PayPal showed that almost 75 per cent of 1,000 Hong Kong consumers polled shopped online at overseas shopping sites such as Amazon and Taobao.

It found that Hong Kong’s e-commerce turnover reached US$7.5 billion in 2020, mostly for clothes, household goods, food and drinks.

The figure rose by almost 20 per cent in 2021, in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis.

Green Sense said individual shoppers could bypass the new measures online unless imported products were also part of the restrictions.

EU could not plug loophole either

Leanne Tam Wing-lam, a campaigner with international environmental group Greenpeace, said the European Union also had a situation where people could still buy banned items from outside the bloc.

The EU outlawed the importation of single-use plastic plates, cutlery, straws, balloon sticks, cotton buds, styrofoam cups and food and drink containers into its 27 member states in 2021.

Rethink Plastic, a European NGO, said the definition of single-use plastics in the EU law was “too narrow and could lead to producers easily avoiding the ban”.

Hong Kong has not explored taking any action against imported single-use plastic items.

Authorities promised they would not ban the use of any product unless there were available alternatives and that they wanted to avoid an excessive impact on residents’ lives.

Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan told lawmakers earlier that the main purpose of the changes was to stop the distribution and sale of plastic items in the city.

But he said the ban would not affect plastic goods that passed through Hong Kong en route to elsewhere.

“Importers can still re-export the goods they can’t sell out locally,” he added.

Government statistics show that Hong Kong imported about 107 tonnes (118 tons) of plastic tableware and kitchenware every day and exported about six tonnes a day in the 12 months from February last year.

The items included cups, lids, spoons and ladles.

Hong Kong has disposed of more than 200 tonnes of single-use plastic tableware every day over the past three years.

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‘Do more to change habits’

Doreen Kong Yuk-foon, a legislator and lawyer, said Hong Kong would find it hard to wipe out single-use plastics because it was legal to possess such items.

“The ban only targets actions, including distribution and sale of such items, but not the goods themselves,” she said.

Kong added it would be too harsh and too difficult to enforce if possessing such items was also banned.

She recommended more public education to “gradually bring about a change in morals and social habits”.

“For example, the government should let the public know that even though one glow stick doesn’t mean much, 5,000 glow sticks from a concert can create a huge impact on the environment,” Kong said.

Glow sticks are particularly popular during concerts and Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations.

Environmental group Green Power has estimated that Hong Kong disposes of 30 million to 40 million glow sticks every year during the festival – and they can only be sent to landfills.

Environmentalists said the ban on single-use plastics presented an opportunity for Hongkongers to consider how to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle.

“Instead of glow lights made of chemicals, you can use rechargeable LED glow sticks when going to a concert,” The Green Earth’s Steven Chan said.

Audiences at many overseas concerts now light up performance venues by turning on their smartphone camera lights.

Greenpeace campaigner Tam said instead of using one regulation to cover all types of behaviour, Hong Kong needed a set of rules to eliminate single-use plastics and to review its policies regularly.

She said some European cities, such as Brussels, had banned the use of disposable plastic products at events in public spaces.

“Taiwan has waste charging as a tool to ensure people will think twice before generating such waste in the first place,” she added.

“Macau has banned the import of styrofoam products and single-use plastic items altogether.”

80% of Hong Kong restaurants not ready for disposable plastics ban

Hong Kong’s proposed citywide waste-charging scheme has been delayed to August amid speculation that it might be postponed even longer.

International education campaign organisation Global Citizen said 16 countries and territories worldwide had banned all single-use plastic so far.

Kenya has imposed the harshest penalties, with anyone found using, producing or selling a plastic bag liable to up to four years’ jail and a maximum fine of US$38,000.

Britain announced a 25-year plan in 2018 to eliminate plastic waste. A tax on plastic bags resulted in 9 billion fewer bags in circulation every year.

Hong Kong raised the plastic bag levy to HK$1 (US 13 cents) in late 2022, double the earlier 50 HK cents.

But Tam said the Hong Kong government needed a plan to help residents understand how they could do their part to reduce plastic waste in each phase of the changes.

“Hong Kong authorities can’t use one rule and think it will regulate all sorts of consumption behaviour,” she said.

Kyle Wong is now weighing up his options to continue his family’s dance videos using glow sticks.

He said he went through about 50 sticks every one to two weeks and he started to buy them from Taobao last year because they were cheaper and sellers could customise the length and thickness.

“We tried to switch to LED light sticks, but they were too heavy compared with chemical glow sticks,” he added.

He added it might be time to change tack and come up with other ways to entertain his children.

Wong said, in the absence of glow sticks, the girls may “do more TV dance games” instead.