Leanda Lee
The Decisive Moment photograph on MDT’s back page last Monday showing mostly plastic debris strewn over Macau’s famous Hac Sa beach seems to have raised some ire and despondency. Documented evidence in such form brings the message home better than volumes of words; we have a problem. Those who have spent a lot of time on the water and at the water’s edge play in this refuse of humanity.
A letter to the editor published on 29th June suggests that the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau governments should act to coordinate efforts to deal with waste to clear up our shores and waterways. Although the waste and detritus continue to be pumped out from the Pearl River Delta this is not just a local matter, although ours is clearly an appalling case. Globally, communities are struggling to determine who should take responsibility for the pollution that comes down rivers and streams into our oceans and sits on and in our land.
This problem requires a great deal of community awareness to solve for it is only through education and changing habits that such pollution can be solved. We have brushed the dust under the carpet, making it someone else’s problem, usually the local government’s. We forget that each and every one of us is implicated.
Since 2011, Plastic Free July has been running to raise awareness of the amount of unnecessary plastic in our lives. Plastics have replaced many materials that were being used unsustainably such as ivory, horn and other plant and animal materials. They have enabled better hygiene and productivity. However, since the 1960s the cheap and ubiquitous material has been used in less durable ways, particularly in single-use packaging. This is the plastic on beaches after storms, found in ships propellers and in intestines of marine animals. Is doesn’t biodegrade and when it does degrade it breaks down into smaller pieces and remains.
Modern consumers and, by extension, businesses are the problem. We consume copious amounts of the stuff to keep our toilet rolls dry in the humid summers, to lessen the burden of parents of infants and toddlers, to keep individual plastic drinking straws “hygienic” for patron use, for carrying, wrapping, beautifying, protecting, separating, serving… It’s light, easy to pop in a bin and most of all, convenient.
Recycling is not the answer, the damage to our waterways and the marine ecosystem prove this. Plastic Free July is about refusing and reusing plastic. Unfortunately, in our modern world it means going without; sometimes without products, mostly without convenience. Imagine shopping in Macau without plastic – difficult but not impossible. You would need to change many habits, eat different things, and go without much of what you are used to. But many people throughout the world are doing just this: 14,000 people and organisations in 69 countries will give up plastic in July.
The prevailing view may be that the problem is not ours, that we do not create the mountains of waste swimming downstream. Yet, our lifestyle and mindset that accepts convenience packaging and dumps it for someone else, somewhere else to deal with is just as damaging as the businesses and communities that dump their waste somewhere up the Pearl River.
How we consume will dictate how businesses produce. Imagine all consumers collecting all the food packaging from one week’s shopping and sending it back to the retailer, handing over the responsibility to dispose of the waste. Awareness would change, habits would change and our environments would change.
Product Life-cycle has taken on a new meaning. It’s not just about benefits to the consumer but social and environmental benefits though extraction of raw materials, production, distribution and disposal. The belief is that businesses have a responsibility all along the supply chain from non-exploitation of people and environment in production to now being extended to product disposal. Consumers are starting to demand this and Plastic Free July in your own home is a sure way to start the conversation. Msai doi.
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