Designer's OOObject homeware line turns scraps into style
Turning food waste into useful items is one green solution this designer brings to the table
Old coffee grounds, used tea leaves and coal ashes make it to the rubbish bin quicker than you can say eco-friendly, which is why one Hong Kong designer has taken this trash and turned it into something useful.
Gewah Lam Cheong-leung, 50, and his team of seven at Green & Associates have spent the last few years experimenting with the waste produced at the breakfast table to create new homeware under the OOObject brand.
"Every morning when you wake up and have breakfast, there are so many things that you use that produce waste," Lam said from his design studio in Kwai Chung.
Food waste makes up 40 per cent of the city's solid waste, and last week the city came one step closer to tackling its waste problem, with the government setting a goal of reducing food waste by 10 per cent by 2015.
A new steering committee met for the first time last Thursday to discuss strategies for reducing food waste at the source and improving household habits.
After the meeting, Environment Secretary Wong Kam-sing said two working groups - one on education, the other focused on industrial best practices - had been set up. Both would look to overseas examples such as London for food-waste-reduction strategies. The groups will meet again next February.