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Green Shoots HK, Hong Kong (2026)

23/04/2024

🌏 Happy Earth Week! 🌍

Hong Kong marked yesterday with a long-awaited step forward with a ban on a wide range of single-use disposable plastics. 🎉 So, how does this affect us? What do we need to know?

🌱 SO, WHAT IS COVERED? 🌱
First stage of the ban covers plastics from two broad categories:
(1) Disposables from Food & Beverage outlets
(2) Other (related to entertainment & beauty)

Full summary in the graphics.

🌱 WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?🌱
The current phase tackles the easiest items (in my opinion!) and should cause only mild discomfort to the average individual. (comment below if you disagree!)

The F&B bans primarily encourage better habits at the outlet level: dine-in restaurants can no longer get away with using disposable plastic and will need switch to washable tableware.

Meanwhile, will we be truly devastated at no longer having glow sticks or balloon clappers at concerts and parties? Perhaps we can return to waving cardboard signs and be happy with our phone torches 🔦.

Most importantly, this phase eliminates the horrifically greenwashed oxo-degradeable plastic products, which are purposely designed to fragment into smaller pieces of plastic (AKA microplastics!). Biggest culprits? Dry cleaning bags and "biodegradable" p**p bags - sorry, dog owners!

🌱 LOOKING FORWARD 🌱
Ultimately, it is Phase 2 of the ban which will truly require change in our habits. Phase 2 will expand the ban of single use F&B plastics to takeaway and general sale as well.

In the meantime, we can start testing new habits to see what works best for us and our families. Do you prefer vacuum lunch boxes that keep food warm, or are collapsable silicone boxes/zip bags sufficient? Will you wash your used utensils at the office pantry, or will you use reusable sandwich bags to bring them home for wash?

One thing's for sure: I'll take very good care of the #1 finger balloons we picked up at this year's Rugby Sevens!

🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱

🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱

Sources:
https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202310/18/P2023101800622.htm
https://www.cuttheplastics.hk/index.php/en/about-the-regulation-en

17/04/2024

April 22 is Earth Day 🌏

Celebrate our planet's beauty with mindful shopping habits! It's all about making simple switches to products that make a BIG impact on the world, without rocking your lifestyle. ✨

Cerqular's popping up at Cathy Pacific City, today thru Friday! Come treat yourselves and your loved ones to up to 20% discount, exclusively at this event!

Featuring Just Peachy Basics, The Lion Rock Press, A Fancy Flamingo, Cali & Lou, and Smart Mama. Thank you to the Headland Hotel The House Collective for hosting us!

If you can't make it in person, access a special Earth Day 10% discount at checkout using EARTH10 🌱

💚 www.cerqular.hk 💚

03/04/2023

Too heavy? Too bulky? Collapsable bottles are my go-to when space is precious.

Pros: They're light and roll up compact, so they slip into smaller purses well.

Cons: The same malleable nature means they're more tricky to handle when drinking.

Of course they won't be able to take as much abuse as metal bottles, but my has lasted me years. For a less sporty look, I'm loving this find from .hk 😍💧🚰

27/11/2022

95% of plastic in HK goes into the landfill. Only 5% makes it for recycling. What you see here is only a portion of this 5% thats recycled by Lau Choi Kee Papers Co. Ltd. .

Can you imagine what the remaining 95% looks like, sitting in the landfills, spilling into the sea, or being incerated?

While our recycling system and infrastructure could be further improved, we can take our own steps to reduce the waste we produce in the first place.

🛍️ Buy only what you really need.
🛍️ Buy only what you love.
🛍️ Buy REUSABLE, then REUSE.

🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱

🧃 2,312 tonnes of plastic waste went to landfills in 2020

🧃 1.55bn beverage bottles were thrown away 2019 - that's 4.2 million PER DAY.

🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱

31/10/2022

Happy Halloween! These cute knitted 🎃 and 👻 are new addtions I found at 's Empowerment Market, but I expect them to be returning for years to come!

After all, my cloth Halloween bunting is 3 years old. (And my Happy Birthday hunting has made it to all five of my son' s birthdays, and all three of my daughter's!)

How do you reduce waste during holidays?

04/10/2022

I thought the worst of the single-use nightmare was behind us once the minions were potty trained... But then came packing school snacks and lunches! 🙈
For A1A2's snacks, I make an effort to buy "bulk", and then apportion into smaller reusable silicone snack bags.
They're light and compact, so they don't add weight or bulk to school bags. Easy to clean, too.
Many options & designs exist. The most versatile is probably to buy a plain bag and then decorate it w decals to suit your child's reigning obsession. Then add on / swap out when their flavour of the day changes. Voilà! 💫💚
🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱

08/09/2022

I had the immense privilege to speak with Francis Ngai at yesterday.

We discussed how technology is empowering mindful businesses like Social Ventures Hong Kong and Cerqular to bring solutions to social and environmental problems to our (and beyond)! 🇭🇰💚

🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱

OOTD: Notes in my supermom cloth tote from Just Peachy Diapers , legs in jeans from Redress

🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱

30/08/2022

🍉🍈🍇🥭🍓🫐
Too many fruits - a lucky problem indeed!
What do you do if you find yourself with fruit thats about to over ripen? Are they inevitably binned? 😱
Stick them in the blender instead! Then drink straight up, mix into plain yoghurt, or make popcicles! 🧊🧡
🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱
Did You Know?
🫐 3,255 TONNES of food waste is disposed daily in Hong Kong
🍓 That's the equivalent of approx. 300 double decker busses a day!
🍇... and represents 30% of landfill waste.
🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱
Checklist:
✅ Effectiveness: So long as you blend before food is rotten, that is food not wasted and not ending up in the landfill!
✅ Availability: Popcicle molds are available everywhere from Ikea, JHC, to the ($10) dollar store. Extra points fpr going plastic-free like the one from
✅ Ease & Convenience: As easy You do need some space in the freezer. The stackable silicone molds from are great space savers.
✅ Affordability: A great way to ensure that food already is already paid for doesn't go to waste! Aside from one off costs of the blender and mold, no further $$ outlays are necessary!
🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱
Why Does It Matter?
Smarter use of food means less food wastage. Not only is this better for your budget, wasting less food is an easy way to reduce our reliance on landfills.
This is particularly important in a land-scarce city like HK. 🌃 💚
Food also doesn't decompose well in oxygen- and bacteria-deprived landfills, so the benefit of decomposition doesn't even get back into our lands' soil.
🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱
Source: HK EPD (https://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/waste/prob_solutions/food_waste_challenge.html)

16/07/2022

.
🔥🥵 35C through next week! 🥵🔥
How are upon keeping hydrated in this heat?
Statistics for PET bottle recycling is all over the place, but at best, only 1 in 10 of PET drink bottles in HK are recycled.* 🤯😱. Ditch the single-use bottles of water and bring your own bottle!
My go-to bottles are my:
💧 Trusty 350ml - Perfect to pop into my purse to run errands.
💧 Collapsable 1L Hydrapak - For longer journeys outdoors. Best part about collpasable bottles are that they get smaller as you drink!.
What's your favourite bottle?
🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱
💚 Checklist 💚
✅ Effectiveness : Every single-use bottle not purchased is one saved from the landfill, or energy saved from the need to recycle.
✅ Convenience : Fill up before you leave the house, before you leave a restaurant, or at a public dispenser. Use the 撲水 - Water for Free app to easily find where you can fill up (for free!).
✅ Cost: Bottles range from $ to $$$$ deoending on how fancy you'd like to go. 💧is typically free, but might be charged - but the alternative was to pay for a disposable bottle or H2O anyway, right?
🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱
Sources :
💚 SCMP (https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3118628/hong-kong-needs-united-action-tackle-plastic-waste-crisis-and-boost)
💚 Green Queen (https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/hong-kong-plastic-bottle-bill-looks-set-for-failure-here-are-8-reasons-why/)

12/07/2022

Reloved finds from the pop-up today - this time, yours truly got to treat herself too! 🎉
The label speaks for itself:
"Around 170 tonnes of clothes enter HK's landfills EVERY DAY." 😵‍💫
Giving perfectly beautiful and functional clothes a home is a no-brainer.
Win for the budget; win for the environment; win for the soul. 💚
Get Redressed Pop-Up Summer Edition | Get Redressed 夏季期間限定二手店
🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱

04/07/2022

Cloth diapers (CDs) : Sustainable AND fashionable! 😍 Miss A2 just can't let her beloved pink CD go! 💕🧷
🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱
On average, babies are diapered until 2.5 years old, using 4 to 6 diapers daily. This translates to up to 5,475 nappies total in 2.5 years. 😵‍💫
Globally, 20 BILLION diapers end up in landfills a year. Single-use diapers take up to 5️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ years to decompose (yes, evem the "eco-friendly" ones)![1] 💩🤯
In Hong Kong, disposable diapers cost on average HKD2.70 per diaper[2], translating to up to HKD14,800 spent on nappies over 2.5 years. 💸💸
Meanwhile, average price of a brand-new CD is HKD188.[3] Switching fully to cloth diapering represents possible savings of over HKD9,100, and even more if one were to go second-hand!
Of course, not everyone can commit to cloth diapering full time. But there is virtue in even CDing part-time - each CD used represents one less nappy around half a millenium from now, not to mention that much better on your wallet! 💰
🌱 Checklist🌱
✅🧷 Effectiveness : CDs have come a long way in terms of ease of use, comfort, and hygiene since the days of our (great) grandparents' generation. But still, capacity is not the same as the synthetics in dispoables. CDs are changed on average 6. 1per day, vs. 4.2x for disposables.[4]
✅🧷 Convenience : There's no glossing over this. Shifting to CDing does require shifting of habits and routine. This spans storage of used used nappies (prior to wash), washing, and drying.
✅🧷 Fun : Despite the additional time needed, cloth diapering is really FUN! My absolute favourite part of CDing are the fantastic designs! It's FASHION. From solid prints, to beautiful flowers, to niche Star Wars designs - whatever you can imagine, someone has made it.
,
✅🧷 Availability : Widely available online (.organicbaby, , ) , in-store ( , .hk ), or even department stores like .
✅🧷 Cost: Ranging from FREE (secondhand!) to whatever you may choose for cloth.
🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱
SOURCES
1/ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
2/ Based on Park N Shop online pricing (Jun 2022)
3/ Based on survey of HK retailers Tippi, Central, (Jun 2022)
4/ U.K. Environment Agency

Green Shoots HK

23/04/2024

17/04/2024

03/04/2023

27/11/2022

31/10/2022

04/10/2022

08/09/2022

30/08/2022

16/07/2022

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04/07/2022

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