Reported by: Rachel Yeo, Phoebe Lai and Fifi Tsui
Buying your meal in McDonald’s may be slightly more inconvenient now, as you may notice that they occasionally do not provide straws for your drink because of their no-straw policy.
Introduced in August 2018, McDonalds is one of the several food & beverage corporations who have made the effort to ditch plastic straws in their products in August 2018. What started from “No Straw Monday” at the beginning of this environmental campaign eventually turned to “No Straw Everyday” by December.
These major food chains have been facing constant pressure from environmental organisations and the public to do away with plastic packaging completely. For example, Green Sense, a local environmental agency, has been calling out various fast food restaurants - namely McDonalds, KFC and Café de Coral - for their over usage of plastic since 2006. They have also proposed a series of long term environmentally friendly policies, such as encouraging these chains to use washable utensils.
Besides McDonalds, about 400 other major food chains have also introduced similar no-straw measures due to these pressures. They include Café de Coral, which promised to stop giving plastic straws to customers since January.
However, merely reducing plastic straws have not made much of a difference to reduce the amount of single-use plastic usage in the city. In fact, Hong Kong residents still use an eye-watering 1.44 billion plastic straws a year, according to Ocean Park Conservation Foundation Hong Kong.
Non-governmental environmental organization Greenpeace has also highlighted in their 2018 winter report that McDonald’s outlets in Hong Kong can generate more than 200,000 single-use plastic items in a single two-hour lunchtime.
The usage of plastic packaging is still evident as well. While plastic straws may be out of the picture for McDonald’s, plastic containers are still being used -- including providing plastic spoons when buying a sundae, which is also stored in a plastic cup. At Starbucks, although some branches offer customers paper straws for $1 instead, plastic cups and lids are still used to store cold drinks.
Chan Hall-sion, an activist from Greenpeace, believes that these chains are still not effective in their efforts in plastic reduction. For example, McDonald's efforts to promote their environmental policies to the public are not transparent enough.
“McDonald’s environmental strategies are not persuasive enough because the plastic cap for cold drinks does not offer a small hole or any other suitable ways to be drunk directly from the mouth, they are not expected to be drunk without straws,” she said.
“This is an irresponsible, unacceptable and lazy act for McDonald’s to claim that they go straw-free to benefit the environment.”
A spokesman for McDonald's declined to comment. There are also no official reports from McDonalds that highlights the use of plastic generated by them.
Despite the backlash, several advocators against single-use plastic feel that banning straws are a step to the right direction.
“It goes in line with public wishes to use less plastic and at the same time if corporations don’t provide it then they can reduce cost. So it is a win-win situation,” said Lincoln Fok, an Associate Professor in the Education of Hong Kong University Department of Science and Environmental Studies.
Raphaël De Ry, founder of environmentally friendly bulk grocery store Edgar, does not use any form of disposable packaging in his organic food products. In fact, customers are encouraged to bring their own containers when purchasing food items from his store.
Although major corporations have not reached Edgar’s level of environmental sustainability yet, Mr. De Ry also thinks that reducing plastic straws are a good initiative.
“On the marketing side, it is very good for them and also operationally it also makes sense for their sustainability reports. It’s a small step, but it makes a difference,” he explained.
Plastic is still one of the most ideal material in terms of convenience, which attributes to why major food chains are taking so long to change their practices.
“If you come with a reusable container at Mcdonalds or Cafe de Coral, they wouldn’t know what to do with it because it is not integrated in their operation,” Mr. De Ry elaborated, adding that some examples include staff members not knowing what to do with the containers or bringing dirty containers that can contaminate food.
In addition, the cost of plastic is cheap to purchase. According to UN data in 2018, the cost per kilogram of plastic kitchenware tableware products was around US$4 dollars ($7.84), while that of stainless steel was double the price.
There has been an average annual decrease of 2kg of plastic imports in 4-years’ time from 2014 to 2018. However, Hong Kong still recycles less than 10% of its plastic waste, according to Greenpeace reports.
“Recycling plastic can get really dirty and they (recycling companies) need to clean it which needs a lot of manual labour. Manual labour in Hong Kong is pretty expensive, so they cannot earn money as the selling price cannot cover the costs,” added Prof. Fok.
The government is also actively trying to cooperate with these organisations to promote a sustainable lifestyle without single-use plastic. Between November 2018 and January 2019, the Environmental Campaign Committee organised the “Plastic-Free Takeaway, Use Reusable Tableware” campaign to promote “plastic-free” takeaways at local fast food chains, such as Café de Coral and Fairwood.
According to ECC spokesperson Matthew Lee, these fast food chains managed to distribute over 86,000 sets of reusable stainless steel cutlery and saved more than 1.2 million sets of disposable tableware during the pilot programme period.
“The campaign has enhanced the public's understanding of the importance of going plastic-free, and promoted behavioural changes to foster a green lifestyle by providing suitable incentives,” he said.
Ultimately, attitudes from the public need to change before major corporations can respond to demands to solve the over dependence of single use plastics. A survey done by Greenpeace highlights that two-thirds of Hongkongers still use disposable plastics when they eat out, although 90% of them are aware of the detrimental effects caused by plastics.
“(If) there is a revolution and people say they don’t want plastic anymore, I can tell you the industry is going to change very fast,” says Mr De Ry.
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