Students are using a Japanese composting technique which offers hope for Hong Kong's bulging landfills
Household rubbish accounted for almost half of our solid waste last year, with 12.5 per cent of Hong Kong's greenhouse emissions coming from methane produced by landfill food waste, or leftovers.
Traditionally, Hongkongers have given little thought to the food they throw away, but local environmental group Teng Hoi Conservation Organisation is trying to change that by collaborating with two international schools in a composting programme.
The project uses the Japanese intensive fermentation technique known as bokashi.
Meaning literally 'fermented organic matter', bokashi is a method of composting that allows food waste to be continually added and broken down by the addition of bokashi bran, which contains effective micro-organisms (EM).
Unlike traditional composting methods, which cannot work on food waste such as meat, fish and cooking oils and generally take months to ferment, the bokashi technique can compost food waste relatively quickly.
George Woodman, director of the Teng Hoi Conservation Organisation and initiator of the programme, practised with several bokashi buckets at home before the trials began at Li Po Chun United World College and King George V School.
