When I look at this photo, I want to ask all Hong Kongers, do you feel no shame? This is another plastic infected mangrove I found in the Agriculture, Fisheries, & Conservation Department's (AFCD) Hoi Ha Wan Marine Park on January 8th. It is absolutely despicable. We have a per capita GDP higher than the USA and a budget surplus of over $12 billion USD for a population of only 7 million and yet we have absolutely no value for our home. It's disgusting. On January 3rd I sent off a letter to Patrick Lai who is the Assistant Director of the Country and Marine Parks branch, AFCD. I also sent a copy of that letter to Alan Chan, Senior Marine Parks Officer at the AFCD and to Leung Chun-ying who is the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR. The Chief Executive is what we call the head of government in Hong Kong. In that letter I posed the simple question "will [they] please begin shaping change and include a permanent exhibit on marine waste in the new Hoi Ha Wan Marine Park Visitor Centre". All three letters were delivered by January 5th as I had sent them registered mail. To date, I have not received any reply although I guess, when you are dealing with the government, it is to be expected. The good news is though today I have the opportunity to take the War on Waste directly to the government. There is a meeting with the Subcommittee on Refuse Collection and Resource Recovery and I have been allocated three minutes to present my thoughts and feelings on this subject. I asked if it is possible to utilise presentation equipment, but unfortunately they do not allow this and so any impact is limited to whatever I can achieve verbally. Yikes! I won't be the only one presenting though. Three minutes have been allocated to a number of people. Although I do not know who they are, I hope that they all share the same opinion on the situation of waste management in Hong Kong. For my presentation, I had thought about using statistics and all that stuff, but there really is not that much you can achieve in just three minutes. So instead I have decided to simply speak directly from my heart about what I have experienced over the last few months getting this little war going. So wish me luck and I will report back to you soon! Sincerely, Chris