Will Hong Kong’s only industrial-scale chicken waste treatment plant be forced to shut down?

Government contract of BSF Hatch, which turns chicken faeces into animal feed, fertiliser and biofuel, is set to expire at the end of August

Environmental group The Green Earth says city needs more, not fewer, of such facilities to deal with its mounting food waste problem

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BSF Hatch, which turns chicken faeces into animal feed, fertiliser and biofuel, faces closure in August unless its government contract is renewed. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 10:00am, 20 May 2024Updated: 5:38pm, 20 May 2024

Hong Kong’s only industrial-scale chicken waste treatment plant faces imminent closure as its government contract is set to expire within four months, its operator has said, even as the city scrambles to deal with a mounting food waste problem.

BSF Hatch, which uses a process that turns chicken faeces into animal feed, fertiliser and biofuel, said it would have to cease operations at the end of August if the city’s environmental authorities did not grant the company a renewal soon.

“Without the government contract, this project won’t be able to self-sustain,” said Kenny Tso Wai-yan, chief executive of Organic Tech, which operates BSF Hatch.

Organic Tech and its parent company, Baguio Green Group, won an 18-month government tender in November 2021 to set up a plant in Tuen Mun’s EcoPark as part of a pilot project to treat the city’s chicken waste using the larvae of black soldier flies.

Kenny Tso, chief executive of Organic Tech Limited, holds up larvae of black soldier flies at BSF Hatch, a treatment facility that turns chicken faeces into biofuel. Photo: Dickson Lee

Scientists proposed using flies to convert manure into protein from as early as the 1970s, when they observed that their larvae had an extraordinary ability to treat organic waste. The technology to breed them has been available since 2002.