In the heart of Hong Kong’s bustling urban landscape, a recent news report cast a sobering light on our environmental challenges. While investigating a missing person case, the police scoured a subdivided flat on Castle Peak Road and deployed scores of officers to the Tuen Mun Area 35 landfill site in Tsing Tsuen. The televised images revealed a landfill rising like a small mountain, a stark testament to our escalating waste crisis. Landfill space is not an endless frontier; it will soon reach its limits. The solid waste we generate daily stands as a formidable threat to our environment, demanding urgent and innovative solutions.
One such solution lies in accelerating the adoption of a circular economy, a beacon of hope in our quest for sustainability. The simple act of choosing secondhand goods over new ones carries profound environmental significance, sparing the need for fresh production and conserving precious global resources. The circular economy builds on this principle, championing a transformative model of production and consumption that prioritizes sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing products and materials. By extending the lifespan of the items around us, we can minimize consumption and waste, weaving a tapestry of sustainability that lightens the burden on our planet.
The traditional economic model follows a linear path: extract raw materials, manufacture, transport, consume, and discard. This straight-line approach thrives when resources are abundant and inexpensive, yielding profits but exacting a heavy environmental toll. In contrast, the circular economy breaks this cycle, ensuring that products are not hastily discarded but repurposed, their remaining value fully harnessed. By reducing the demand for new goods, we curb resource depletion, safeguarding our environment from the ravages of overconsumption.
The importance of environmental stewardship is a truth universally acknowledged, and the circular economy is its steadfast ally. Reusing and recycling products slows the depletion of natural resources, preserving landscapes and habitats vital to biodiversity. By scaling back production, we also reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a critical step in combating climate change. In Europe, where each person generates approximately 190 kilograms of packaging waste annually, much of which ends up in landfills, the need for such a model is undeniable. Hong Kong, too, faces this challenge, with our landfills teetering on the brink of capacity.
To realize the promise of a circular economy, we must prioritize the creation of high-quality, durable products. From the design stage, goods should be crafted for efficiency and longevity, as studies suggest that over 80 percent of a product’s environmental impact is determined during this phase. By focusing on sustainability from the outset, we can significantly reduce energy and resource consumption throughout a product’s lifecycle.
The towering landfills of Hong Kong are a clarion call for change. The circular economy offers a path to a sustainable future, reducing waste, conserving resources, and protecting our planet’s biodiversity
Packaging presents another critical frontier. While new purchases often come with unavoidable packaging, a circular economy seeks to minimize this waste. The stark reality in Europe — 190 kilograms of packaging waste per person annually — underscores the urgency of adopting reusable or recyclable solutions. In Hong Kong, where waste management is a pressing concern, such strategies can transform our approach, reducing the mountains of refuse that pile up in our landfills.
Hong Kong has made commendable strides in environmental education, cultivating a growing awareness among residents of the need for conservation. This heightened consciousness is a fertile foundation for change, signaling that the time is ripe to transition from a linear consumption model to a circular one. Recent initiatives, such as community recycling programs and public campaigns, have already begun to shift mindsets, preparing the ground for broader adoption of sustainable practices.
Yet the journey to a circular economy demands collective action. Manufacturers must design products with longevity and recyclability in mind, while consumers should embrace reusing and repairing over discarding. Policymakers can support this shift through incentives for sustainable design and infrastructure for recycling. By weaving these efforts together, Hong Kong can lead the charge in sustainable innovation, setting a global example.
The towering landfills of Hong Kong are a clarion call for change. The circular economy offers a path to a sustainable future, reducing waste, conserving resources, and protecting our planet’s biodiversity. As we stand at this pivotal moment, let us seize the opportunity to transform our consumption habits, forging a vibrant, resilient Hong Kong that shines as a beacon of environmental stewardship for generations to come.
The author is a specialist in radiology, a founding convenor of the Hong Kong Global Youth Professional Advocacy Action, and an adviser of the Our Hong Kong Foundation.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
