Editorial | Greener approach to Hong Kong food waste required
- With most of it going in city landfills that are nearly full, there are signs of change thanks to a processing plant and top restaurants
Food is a focus for many in Hong Kong, where even a common Cantonese greeting asks others if they have eaten yet. But the city’s enviable culinary abundance is tainted by a lack of options to deal with one of the thorniest of sustainability issues – food waste.
The Environmental Protection Department estimates the bulk of such waste ends up in landfills that are almost full. The latest figures, from 2021, indicate that about 30 per cent of 11,358 tonnes of solid rubbish sent to landfills each day consisted of food.
Leftovers tipped the scales as the largest municipal solid waste category. Around 800 tonnes a day were from restaurants, hotels, wet markets and food producers.
It is good to see authorities and some industry players working up an appetite for more green cuisine, especially as the clock ticks toward a target of carbon neutrality by 2050. Financial incentives and growing fears about climate change have convinced some shopping centre owners and vendors to send unwanted food to the government’s pilot processing and recovery centre in North Lantau.
The O Park at Siu Ho Wan opened in 2018 as a sustainable alternative to landfills and creates biogas by breaking down waste to generate fuel for power generation. Other leftovers are turned into compost.
