Café de Coral group ditches plastic a week before ban

As Hong Kong counts down to the single-use plastic ban, fast-food restaurant giant Café de Coral announced it is ditching all plastic tableware on Tuesday (Apr 16), a week before the ban comes into effect.

The ban, to commence on April 22, prohibits merchants and restaurants from providing or selling single-use plastic products, including tableware, toothpicks and plastic-stemmed cotton buds.

The group announced today that its 380 restaurants, including Café de Coral, Super Super Congee & Noodle, and Mixian Sense will make a switch to non-plastic tableware for takeaways.

Customers who wish to obtain non-plastic cutlery will have to pay an extra HK$1.

Meanwhile, the group said eight of its restaurants were included in a trial program that allowed customers to bring their own containers for drinks to reduce the use of single-use tableware products.

Another fast-food operator Fairwood earlier announced that its restaurants will cease providing plastic tableware for takeaways next Monday. Customers can either bring their own cutlery, or pay HK$1 for a set of non-plastic cutlery and HK$2 for a set of stainless steel cutlery.