On a blue sky day, Hong Kong is nothing short of spectacular. But if a typhoon blows in, or a dodgy tide, so does a whole heap of rubbish and its beaches end up trashed. And it’s not just Hong Kong that is bearing the brunt of our obsession with throwaway plastic – there has been a marked and noticeable increase in the amount of rubbish strewn washing up on beaches all over South East Asia during the last couple of years.
With this in mind, two Clearwater Bay mums have launched The Green 52, an environmental blog aimed at encouraging followers to make lasting changes to their everyday lives to help reduce environmental impact.
Every Monday a green challenge will be posted on the blog and on Wednesday it will be explained how to achieve the challenge in Hong Kong.
“We will not preach, we will not make people feel guilty, rather we want to provide weekly, practical and manageable ideas on how to become more environmentally-friendly,” said co-founder Zoe Stevenson.
The pair, both British expats and Clearwater Bay residents, have five children under nine years between them and say the initiative was sparked by the worrying change in the environment that their kids are growing up in. “We are both lucky enough to live near the beach but over the past six years the amount of plastic washing ashore has increased dramatically,” explained fellow founder Laura Tyson. “It’s now easier for our children to collect bottle tops than shells.”
“We don’t expect people to do all the challenges, although that of course would be fabulous,” said Stevenson.
Sign up at thegreen52.com.
Beyond the Highrise 