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Hong Kong environmental issues
OpinionHong Kong Opinion
David Dodwell
Inside Out
David Dodwell

What’s so bad about artificial flowers and fake plants?

  • Much of the criticism of artificial flowers is environmental: they are made in factories, use plastics and end up in landfills. But the cut-flower business also has poor green credentials

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People enjoy a flower tunnel set up to celebrate the Lunar New Year at Hong Kong Park, Admiralty, on February 5. Photo: Dickson Lee
David Dodwell
David Dodwell is a journalist focused on Hong Kong and China since the 1970s.

Over Lunar New Year and up to Easter, my local shopping centre was transformed into a cherry-blossom-festooned “Barbieland” providing infinite Instagrammable opportunities for shoppers, families and romancing couples. Yards away, the passageways to the shopping centre’s toilets and its underground car parks were cheered up by large walls of flowers and other plants.

It got me wondering to what extent fake foliage was encroaching on, or even taking over, many communities’ increasingly fake existences: “artificiae plantae” to decorate our “artificialis vita”. Is it inevitable as more of us live urbanised lives with less contact with “real” nature? Is it intrinsic to Generation Z’s internet-mediated lives, with their curated TikTok personas and “virtual reality” holidays? To what extent is it bad?
From Li Ka-shing’s entrepreneurial origins as a maker of plastic flowers over 70 years ago, Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta have been indelibly associated with artificial flowers. Ngar Tat in Kwun Tong still flies the flag but most of our fake-flower makers have settled around the Pearl River – from where they dominate the world market for increasingly sophisticated fake flowers and foliage.

While many still use plastic, they nowadays use much more silk and other materials. Extraordinary innovation means that many fake flowers are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. Meticulous botanical imitation and the use of 3D printing deceive all but the closest examination. Even floral fragrances can be deployed, with some fake flowers infused with materials that transform water into a sugar solution which can attract butterflies and insects.

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