Only 6 per cent of the city's 1,200 schools have adopted the most environment-friendly means of serving their pupils lunch, and almost a fifth still use disposable lunch boxes that are not recyclable, lawmakers heard yesterday.
The environment minister insisted schools had made strides towards 'greener' canteen practices.
He said the government was considering offering schools subsidies to renovate canteens and buy equipment needed to adopt the most environment-friendly means of serving lunch - cooking the food off site and dividing it into portions at the school, which officials call 'central portioning'.
The minister, Edward Yau Tang-wah, said 51 per cent of the 550,000 students served lunch each day now ate from reusable lunch boxes. Another 30 per cent were served their food in recyclable polypropylene containers, he said.
Thirty-eight of the 52 lunch box suppliers offered reusable ones and 11 provided central portioning to about 70 schools, he said, quoting an Environmental Protection Department study conducted last summer. In 2004, only two suppliers offered reusable lunch boxes or central portioning.
'The government's measures to promote green school lunches have begun to deliver results,' Mr Yau told the Legislative Council. The long-term goal was for all schools to serve environment-friendly lunches.
