Hong Kong residents call for food waste recycling

The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, reports that a survey conducted in April by the Green Council, a nonprofit, nonpartisan environmental association based in Hong Kong, found that a majority of Hong Kong residents would be willing to recycle food waste if facilities that provided the service were more readily available.

According to the survey, only 5% of residential properties in Hong Kong are equipped to recycle food waste. For this reason, 66%of residents do not attempt to recycle their food waste, though 89 percent of the 1,288 respondents said they would be willing to if the service was more convenient. 

The Green Council also found that, though direct disposal is the most common method for handling food waste, restaurants certified to dispose of food waste are likely to attract more consumers. Almost 90% of respondents said they would visit restaurants more often that reduced or recycle food waste, according to the article.

“In the past two or three years, our consumers have become a lot more aware of the problem of food waste,” Carrel Kam Lin-wang, director of the Yung Kee Restaurant, told the Post. “Unlike a few years ago, when customers would intentionally order until there was food to spare, nowadays even celebrities who eat at our restaurant will bring their own boxes to pack leftovers.”