How Hong Kong’s fast-food restaurants serve up a mountain of waste
Environmentalists say need to phase out use of disposable packaging especially pressing locally given city’s acute shortage of land
Ever thought about how much waste is produced by just one meal in Hong Kong’s popular fast-food restaurants?
A fact-finding mission by the Post has revealed KFC tops the list of the industry’s “big wasters” locally in terms of the number of disposable items generated by one meal: KFC’s hot-and-spicy combo, priced at HK$43, yielded an extraordinary 12 single-use items.
Jollibee, meanwhile, generated the most disposable trash in terms of weight, coming to 60 grams of single-use refuse from one chicken and mushroom rice meal, costing HK$48.
These were among the four most popular fast-food chains in the city that serve eat-in diners with single-use packaging. Combined they generate dozens of tonnes of waste every day.
The other two chains, McDonald’s and Burger King, were not far behind. The “Golden Arches” produced eight items of waste from a double cheeseburger meal, coming to 50 grams of total refuse. And the “home of the Whopper” produced nine items of waste from its signature meal, also totalling 50 grams.
While this little experiment was far from scientific, environmentalists say there is a pressing need for Hong Kong to catch up with its international counterparts in phasing out the use of disposable packaging in the food industry.