The government should introduce a HK50-cent levy on disposable cutlery, a green group said after estimating that McDonald's alone dumps more than 11 million items a month during lunch hours.
Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen should announce in his October policy address a levy on disposable items such as cups, paper boxes and styrofoam bowls, Green Sense said.
It said the 210 McDonald's outlets in Hong Kong had dumped more than 400 million such items in the past three years, based on estimates from a 2006 survey that the fast-food chain used more than 11 million disposable items every month during two-hour lunchtimes.
'The situation can only worsen this year as McDonald's opens more 24-hour outlets,' Green Sense project officer Sun Ho-yan said. 'They have also encouraged waste by introducing a delivery service.'
Yesterday, at a McDonald's in Sham Shui Po, the group threw a 'birthday party' to illustrate how much waste McDonald's generates. More than 150 packaging items and disposable cutlery were used during the event attended by 10 guests, Green Sense president Roy Tam Hoi-pong said.
After the 2006 survey, which revealed that McDonald's and KFC were the chains that used the most disposable cutlery, Ms Sun said KFC had shown willingness to improve. It had replaced paper cups with washable plastic ones and stopped using some disposable cutlery, she said.
