Alexandra Tracy, Green Finance Advisor of Friends of the Earth (HK) / 香港地球之友綠色金融顧問Alexandra Tracy
As the coronavirus continues to create difficulties for us in our daily lives, perhaps one surprisingly welcome outcome from the outbreak is the attention it has brought to another significant challenge for our region – dealing with waste.
Newspaper articles last week (https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3065049/coronavirus-china-struggling-deal-mountain-medical-waste-created) reported that China is struggling to deal with a “mountain of medical waste” created by the epidemic, noting that “tonnes of discarded face masks pile up around the country.”
The capacity of China’s waste treatment industry to handle the current volume of clinical waste is woefully inadequate. A significant number of dedicated incineration facilities were built after the SARS outbreak, but most are near the end of their operating lives, according to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment.
While medical waste is particularly in focus at the moment, this is just part of the larger problem of the waste treatment sector across the region. Solid waste, in particular single use plastics, is still managed extremely poorly, with huge amounts of plastic pollution ending up in the ocean.
In addition to the weak oversight of waste treatment in some Asian countries, insufficient investment is a major factor constraining improvements in refuse management. A recent Ocean Conservancy report identified a net financing gap for plastic waste collection of between US$28 and US$40 per ton in the top five ocean polluting countries in the world: China, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Policy makers and companies are beginning to prioritise better waste management, but the financial markets need to catch up. Just 4% of green bonds issued to date explicitly tackle waste reduction. Only three companies globally have completed specific fund raisings, although other corporates, such as Apple, have dedicated part of their green bond proceeds to waste reduction.
But there are also positive signs of investor interest in tackling the solid waste problem in Asia, especially targeting ocean clean up. For example, Circulate Capital recently announced the launch of a US$106 million fund to reduce plastic pollution in the ASEAN region by investing in treatment and recycling, as well as new materials. The company has reportedly identified more than two hundred potential investment opportunities.
According to the International Finance Corporation, as much as US$120 billion of value is lost through packaging that enters the environment. This presents a huge opportunity for investors. Better prevention, reuse, recycling and energy recovery could also achieve significant emissions reductions, which could be as much as 15% of the global total.
新型冠狀病毒疫症持續為人類的日常生活帶來麻煩，但這場疫症亦有可能同時提醒著我們、並帶出了亞洲地區另一重大挑戰 – 廢物管理。
上週有傳媒報導（https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3065049/coronavirus-china-struggling-deal-mountain-medical-waste-created），中國正努力應對這場疫症造成的「海量醫療廢物」，並指出「全國各地堆積了大量廢棄的口罩」。
中國廢物管理工業處理當前醫療廢物量的能力嚴重不足。根據中國生態環境部所述，大量的專用焚化爐都是在沙士爆發後建成，但大多數的使用壽命將至。
儘管目前我們最為關注醫療廢物，但這個問題只是亞洲地區廢物管理上的一部分而已。都市固體廢物、特別是一次性塑膠的管理仍然非常不足，大量的棄置塑膠最終還是排進了海洋。
一些亞洲國家除了在廢物管理上監管不足外，缺乏足夠投資也是限制著廢物管理改善的主要因素。海洋保護協會（Ocean Conservancy）最近一份報告指出，全球頭五大海洋污染國家：中國、泰國、印尼、菲律賓及越南，他們的塑膠垃圾收集的淨資金缺口為每噸28美元至40美元。
政府和企業已開始陸續把優質廢物管理優先排序，但是金融市場仍必須盡快迎頭趕上。迄今為止，僅有4％的已發行綠色債券明確地投放在減廢措施，而儘管蘋果公司等企業已將其綠色債券收益的一部分專門用作減廢，全球仍只有三間企業完成相關籌資。
即使如此，現時還是有積極的跡象表明，有亞洲投資者有興趣解決固體廢物問題，尤其是針對海洋清潔。例如，Circulate Capital最近宣布啟動一項總值1.06億美元的基金，投資在垃圾處理、回收以及發展新材料，減少東盟地區的塑膠污染。據了解，該公司已經發現了多達200個潛在投資機會。
根據國際金融公司（International Finance Corporation）的數據，產品包裝物料長期流入環境，造成高達一千二百億美元的損失。此數據正代表著投資者的龐大機會，當中包括更理想的預防措施、循環再用、回收和轉廢為能，這也可以實現大幅度減排，數量能高達佔全球總量的15％。
Photo source / 圖片來源：United Nations Environment Programme Flickr
