減少廚餘工作

During Chinese New Year, there are different kinds of celebratory activities and people are more willing to consume. Therefore, the disposal of municipal solid waste keeps increasing in Hong Kong during this period, and the most serious problem is food waste. Chinese people especially care about the dinners on New Year’s Eve, the eighteenth day of Lunar New Year and the fifteenth day in the first lunar month. They would have a big feasts with their relatives and friends. Also, they would leave some leftovers, which means having a surplus year after year. As a result, the number of food waste during Chinese New Year is soaring every year. Two days before New Year’s Eve, Greeners Action led a volunteer team of 10 people to a restaurant in Kwun Tong. We distributed ‘Fai Chun’ (red papers) writing “Save Food” to the diners, and also reminded them not to waste but treasure food during Chinese New Year.

In October 2009, Greeners Action interviewed 349 diners and 81% of them have the habit of leaving leftovers, in which 92% of them would leave less than 30% of food. We can see that people can try to produce less food waste. According to the latest statistics of food waste from the Environmental Protection Department, a restaurant of about 13,000 square feet would waste 217 kilograms of food every day. Hong Kong has about 1,300 restaurants, meaning that 282 tonnes of food are wasted each day. What makes us shocked and pitiful is that the amount of food waste rises to 338 tones during Chinese New Year, which is 20% more than that during normal days.

Mr, To Tak-wing, the Executive Director of Choi Fook Holdings Limited, said, “Normally, every table in a restaurant would have 1% to 2% of food waste. Therefore, on average, 0.5 kilogram would be produced for two tables of a wedding party. During Chinese New Year, there are more people celebrating and having dinner in the restaurants. We have tailor-made a half set meal for the families with fewer members to enjoy the dishes on the full set menu. We are planning to allow the customers to order dim sums in their desired amount. For example: a family of six members can order six shrimp dumplings. Also, we would encourage people to order the food they can finish in order to avoid food waste. Also, we would like to prepare an appropriate and adequate amount of food for them.” To promote the idea of reducing food waste, the restaurants would ask their staff to encourage customers to use lunch boxes for taking away their leftovers. Moreover, they would have regular meetings to investigate how to use the fresh ingredients left every day.

“Having a surplus year after year” becomes “Having food waste every year”
Mr. Ho Hon-wai, the Executive Director of Greeners Action, mentioned the following: “Chinese New Year is always the peak for food waste. We predict the amount of food waste would rise by at least 20% for all restaurants in Hong Kong during this period. We hope citizens would not create the environmental disaster of ‘having food waste every year’ just because of the auspicious tradition of ‘having a surplus year after year’. Indeed, we discovered that the food waste problem during Chinese New Year is particularly severe for a banquet with 12 dishes. Most people are already full when having the ninth dish, but they still have 3 dishes to go. Subsequently, the fried chicken, noodles, rice and desserts would almost be totally wasted.”

On 11th February, Greeners Action led a voluneer team of 10 people to Choi Fook Wedding Banquet in Kwun Tong. They encouraged people not to waste food when having meals with relatives and friends during Chinese New Year. They even distributed a total of 1,000 Fai Chun (red papers) to people writing “Save Food” and “Always Have Food”. They hope to encourage the people to build up green eating habits of “saving food” starting from this year, after they put up the Fai Chun in their home. Greeners Action would like to provide the guidelines of “saving food” for the restaurants and the public through this activity.
1. Buy the appropriate amount of food depending on the number of people when preparing for the year end and new year dinners.
2. Avoid ordering too many dishes when dining out
3. Prepare lunch boxes to take away the leftovers as to prevent wasting food and convey the auspicious message of “having a surplus year after year”
4. Female and children usually eat less, so we should count the food consumption of two of them as that of a person for the year end dinner.

Greeners Action suggests that restaurants can also encourage diners to pay attention to the amount of meals. For example: they can tell the diners the amount of different meals for ordering food. Also, they can ask or remind the diners whether they need to adjust the amount of meals during a banquet. This would not only enhance the relationship between the restaurants and the customers through communication, but also relieve the problem of food waste together. Therefore, we can join hands to create a green environment for Hong Kong.

Greeners Action believes food waste in Hong Kong can reduce by a huge amount. Reducing waste at source and treasuring food are the most effective and direct ways to solve the problem. This year, we would continue holding the activity called “Saving Food Day”. Its kick-off ceremony would take place on 21st February at Olympian City. The participating restaurants and companies of the activity would be announced at that time.