‘Paddle without Plastic’

In the fight against marine pollution, Hong Kong dragon boat paddlers join forces

• “Paddle without Plastic”, is a campaign that invites paddlers, sponsors and festival organisers to reduce plastic waste in training and race events.
• Launched to coincide with the start of the city’s dragon boat season (which runs until the end of July), the campaign has been backed by Hong Kong pop star Jolie Chan and diver and ghost-net hunter Harry Chan.
• It has attracted teams from Lamma Island, Lantau Island and Hong Kong Island who have pledged to ban single-use plastic bottles and food containers.
• “We’re confident to reach 40 teams this year,” says Suzanne Younan, founder of Green Dragons HK, the boat crew behind the campaign. “This results in more than 500 paddlers committing to changing their habits and raising awareness about marine pollution. That’s a great win for our community and for the planet.
• “If you consider that each team trains twice a week with 25 paddlers during 15 weeks of the season, this is 30,000 bottles that will not be added to the 5.2 million single-use plastic bottles entering the Hong Kong waste system every day,” she adds, referring to figures released in 2017 by Hong Kong based environmental group The Green Earth.
• “Hong Kong dragon boat teams are coming together as one community to fight single-use plastic. They’re overcoming their competitive instinct to be stronger together, to lead by example and make a difference to the ocean and Hong Kong beaches.”

Source: SCMP