HONG KONG -- Following its inaugural conference on plastic waste issues on the sidelines of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil last year, the Plasticity conference is coming to Hong Kong in early June.
The June 6 event, billed as an exploration of solutions to the problems of plastic waste, includes keynote speeches from Christine Loh, the undersecretary for the environment for Hong Kong, and Mike Biddle, the founder of Richmond, Calif.-based plastics recycler MBA Polymers and winner of the Gothenburg Sustainability Award.
The forum is organized by the Ocean Recovery Alliance, a non-profit with offices in California and Hong Kong. The alliance focuses on ocean pollution issues, including plastic waste. The American Chemistry Council is listed as a supporting partner on the event's website.
“As of 2013, 40 percent of the world's ocean surfaces were covered with some form of floating plastic trash,” the ORA said in a statement announcing the event. “The statistics are sobering, but a growing number of companies and organizations… are eyeing solutions to the burgeoning plastic waste issue.”
The event will also include addresses from Bayer Material Science and the Taiwan Plastics Industry Development Center.
The head of the conference said it aims to bring together retailers, government policy makers, manufacturers and others to discuss the problem.
“The brands that will win will be the ones which admit that the communities they serve have a problem with plastic waste; which take the lead in making improvements; and which are part of that solution,” said Doug Woodring, event organizer and a co-founder of Ocean Recovery Alliance.
More information can be found at www.plasticityforum.com.