Tseung Kwan O residents sign up for pilot scheme to cut food waste

Households at a Tseung Kwan O estate have embarked on a two-month mission to help slash one of the biggest contributors to the city's overflowing landfills - food.

They have signed up to a pilot scheme under which 100-150kg of waste is being sent each day to be made into fish feed.

Mak Chun-keung, chairman of the owners' committee at the private Oscar by the Sea, said the scheme not only helped the environment but could also serve as a model for estates to reduce disposal costs if the government imposed a solid-waste charge.

Of the 9,000 tonnes of solid waste discarded at each of the city's three landfills each day, about 40 per cent is food.

"I support a pay-as-you-throw scheme," Mak said. "I don't think it's an issue of persuading people to co-operate, it's about whether they are willing to take up the social responsibility as Hong Kong citizens."

The 200 households in the Tseung Kwan O scheme have been issued with one-litre cartons capable of storing 1.5kg of solid-food waste including vegetable ends, expired produce and even shells and bones. The cartons are emptied at a collection point in the estate's car park where a truck arrives daily to take the waste to a processing plant run by Kowloon Biotechnology in Lau Fau Shan.

Ten tonnes of food waste can make a tonne of fish feed according to the World Green Organisation, the non-profit group that helped to roll out the scheme.