Wise To Waste: The Sustainable Guy!

Martijn Ros is shaking up the city’s recycling game – linking farms, festivals and food waste to build one of Hong Kong’s only truly circular systems. Turns out, garbage might be the smartest idea he’s ever had. Elizabeth Kerr reports

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Andrew Spires

Actually, that's a good idea, Elizabeth. I hadn’t thought about that,” says Mar tijn Ros via Google from his home in Discovery Bay. Our conversation revolves around his almost two-year-old garbage company, Waste Wise, and how he can make the most of its connection with Hong Kong’s small independent farms – of which there are hundreds – and hosting a farmer’s market. Martijn never thought in a million years he’d be making a career out of waste, so why not host a Sunday market? He’s got more than just those three dozen farmers keen to collect Waste Wise’s free compost and he has plans to spread the gospel of urban farming through partnerships with workshop providers.

To say Martijn runs a garbage business is reductive, considering the 30-year-old Netherlands native and his company co-founder Ivan Tai are actively working towards not just recycling, but also circularity in Hong Kong. Waste Wise (www.wastewisehk.com) was established in response to the 2024 plastic tableware ban, and its facility specialises in compostable tableware. The ban nobly aimed at reducing plastic to landfill, but there was no management facility able to cater to those materials.

“We already had a composting facility and technology that collected food waste, yard waste, animal waste… and donated the compost to local farms,” Martijn explains. “[We] want to grow Waste Wise to have a positive impact instead of being focused on the negatives of manufacturing, and work towards improving the overall recycling situation in Hong Kong.”

Recycling is a constant source of debate, as are most subjects related to waste management. Martijn can go on at length about the wisdom behind the now scrapped waste charging scheme, a carrot-and-stick rewards-based approach that works in Germany, Taiwan and Korea among others, and the endless argument over infinitely recyclable glass or lightweight petroleum-based plastic – which admittedly extends food life and reduces food waste and shipping costs. “Life cycle analysis is what counts,” Mar tijn explains. Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t recycle our plastics. It’s just a complex challenge that Martijn is trying to help overcome.

And calling Martijn a Netherlands native is only half the story. Martijn relocated to Hong Kong with his family in 1999 at four years old, thanks to his father’s work with Dutch multinational Philips, which was expanding its health technology manufacturing in China. He completed kindergarten, primary and high school (at Discovery Bay International School) before heading back to the Netherlands to study hospitality at university. It was in Amsterdam for his first extended stay that he realised how unique Hong Kong’s cosmopolitanism actually is, as well as finding himself in the strange position of being neither truly Dutch nor truly a Hongkonger. He hung out mostly with international students, and when he graduated, he made the unconventional choice to come back. Many would ask why, when an EU passport was right there, but Martijn’s answer is simple.

“Because Hong Kong is my home,” he states, without hesitation, adding his parents are still here, and that his older sister (working in Amsterdam) and younger brother (studying there) are probably moving back too. He’ll admit the city has changed over the years, but thinks it’s turned a corner, and remains dynamic. “Everyone is here because they understand it’s extremely special.”

Martijn’s not leaving Discovery Bay either. “I’ve lived in DB for most of my life. I don’t like to go to the city too often. My Kwai Chung office is actually two MTR stations and a bus away; it’s not too bad.” He raises his voice a bit in order to be heard over the blaring car horn coming through my window. “Someone’s angry outside your house, huh? That's another reason,” he adds with a chuckle.

“I’ve definitely thought about living in town, but in DB I can walk three minutes and I’m at my gym, at the supermarket or at different restaurants. Ten minutes and I’m at the start of a beautiful hike that ends in Mui Wo, where I can get a taste of the local Chinese cuisine from the seafood restaurants. I can go to Tung Chung and experience a subdued city life, where I’m not suffocating in crowds. I’m extremely happy in DB, and I make concessions in convenience to live here.”

So considering Martijn plans on living here for the foreseeable future, he’s vowed to do his part and make it better. In many ways, Waste Wise is the result of living with a father whose work involved innovating with regard to waste generation and management, and to manufacturing processes and operations. He credits his father’s support with helping Waste Wise collect 80,000 kilogrammes of waste so far in a tricky recycling environment.

Many consumers take a dim view of recycling, assuming the worst, but Martijn argues that despite a lack of crucial industrial space, Hong Kong has put considerable investment into recycling infrastructure over the last decade – that’s actually being used and is having an impact, particularly on the plastic bottle front. And anyone who doesn’t believe it is welcome to follow his trucks to see for themselves.

“That's actually where Waste Wise comes in,” he says. “The reason people are resonating with our mission is because we offer a tracking mechanism for the waste that we actually collect.”

In fairness, plastic recycling is only part of Waste Wise’s mandate, a sector it naturally segued into alongside other materials. “We started with hoping that the impact itself would be enough to get people interested in the programme, because we’re one of the only fully circular systems in Hong Kong,” says Martijn. “Everything we collect from our waste categories that we compost is donated to Hong Kong farms. So it does go straight back to the ear th, and it’s 100% durable.”

A huge chunk of Waste Wise’s energy goes into education at all levels. The company regularly hosts in-person and online presentations for students, teachers, parents and its corporate and F&B clients and their employees to boost engagement and awareness. In schools, the Zero Waste Olympics offers some friendly competition, complete with a leaderboard, monthly contests and a year-end school champion. Waste Wise’s most high-profile corporate client could be Clockenflap, which shifted to compostable solutions for its food vendors in 2024. Waste Wise collected 3,500 kilogrammes of waste over three days with just a 5% contamination rate.

Even though his unique plug-in solution has gotten attention from cities in the Philippines and Australia, and Mar tijn is happy to share the wisdom, it’s slow going given complex regulatory issues and consumer behaviour that changes from place to place. Martijn is keeping his focus on Hong Kong for now, and is planning to scale up from composting 500 kilogrammes per day to 10,000, to accommodate some local clients that need more capacity. “I grew up in Hong Kong and my partner is a local. We’re similar in age, but we grew up on different parallel paths. He went through the public school system and I went through international, and that kind of juxtaposition has been essential in us creating our services and our overall messaging.”

The next year is shaping up to be a big one for Waste Wise, between new, bigger clients and that farmer’s market (fingers crossed). Martijn will carve out some time to keep fit and decompress in his favourite getaway spots in southeast Asia, but ask him where he is when he’s not in a truck or at the office and the answer is no surprise. “When I’m not collecting garbage, I’m thinking about new ways we can collect garbage.”