Deep Dive: Hong Kong’s efforts to fight food waste and be more eco-friendly

Motivated by financial incentives and climate change worries, some shopping mall owners and food vendors in Hong Kong are stepping up efforts to tackle food waste, increasing the amount of unwanted food sent to the government’s pilot processing and recovery centre.

As part of Hong Kong’s goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, the city opened its first organic waste treatment facility, O Park, on Lantau Island in 2018. It can process 200 tonnes of food waste daily, generating electricity for 3,000 households. The biogas created as food waste breaks down can fuel power generation, while leftover waste can be turned into compost.

The reduction in organic waste going to landfills and the fossil fuel savings from biogas-based electricity generation would prevent the emission of 42,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases each year.

According to data from the Environmental Protection Department, food waste comprised 30 per cent of the 11,358 tonnes of solid rubbish sent to landfills daily in 2021.

Around 800 tonnes of that was generated by restaurants, hotels, wet markets and food producers.

Link Asset Management owns over 50 food markets in Hong Kong, of which more than 90 per cent participate in the “upcycling” effort. It aims to eliminate its landfill waste and achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2035.

“Hong Kong’s three landfills are forecast to reach their designed capacity in a few years, making it imperative that we seek alternatives to reduce the pressure on them,” said Jeff Mau, director of property management (HK) at Link.

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One of its tenants, Café de Coral Group, signed up about 20 per cent of its outlets for the city’s food waste upcycling pilot scheme in 2021. The group aims to reduce food waste per meal by 10 per cent by March 2030.

“[We] started to introduce strategies to reduce food waste at the source, including reducing the slices of lemons in drinks [and] adjusting meal portions,” said Piony Leung, managing director of Hong Kong operations at Café de Coral.

But for smaller operators, it is tough to find space to store leftover food, said Simon Wong Kit-lung, CEO of restaurant operator LH Group. “Food waste is prone to hygiene and odour problems, so having designated collection points at shopping malls to facilitate cost-effective transportation to the recovery centre is key.”

Staff writers

Question prompts

1. Which of the following factors have motivated the shopping mall owners and food vendors mentioned in News to step up their efforts in addressing food waste?

(1) Government subsidies
(2) Garnering public support
(3) Financial rewards
(4) Concerns about climate change

A. (1), (2)
B. (1), (3)
C. (3), (4)
D. All of the above

2. Identify ONE benefit and ONE challenge of recovering food waste.

3. What more can shopping mall owners and the food and beverage sector do to tackle Hong Kong’s food waste problem? Explain using News and your own knowledge.

Question prompts

1. What trends about Hong Kong’s daily food waste can you observe from the chart?

2. Could O Park have handled all of the food waste generated daily in 2022? Explain using information from News and your own knowledge.

• BSF Hatch, which turns chicken faeces into animal feed, fertiliser and biofuel, could close at the end of August if the government does not renew its contract

• Environmental group The Green Earth says city needs more of these facilities to deal with food waste problem

Hong Kong’s only industrial-scale chicken waste treatment plant faces imminent closure as its government contract will expire in four months, its operator has said.

BSF Hatch turns chicken faeces into high-protein animal feed, fertiliser, pet food, and biodiesel. The company said it would have to cease operations at the end of August if the city’s environmental authorities do not grant a contract 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 that treats the city’s chicken waste using black soldier fly larvae. Scientists have proposed using flies to convert manure into protein since the 1970s, when they observed that their larvae could treat organic waste.

Countries such as the United States, Britain, and Singapore have their own projects using larvae to process food and organic waste. In mainland China, the market value of black soldier fly rose to 416 million yuan (about HK$457 million) this year, up from 212 million yuan (HK$232.8 million) in 2017.

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In Hong Kong, Baguio Green Group built a 35,000 sq ft enclosed, controlled-environment facility to run the project after securing a HK$27.6 million (US$3.5 million) contract from the Environmental Protection Department (EPD).

Baguio Green Group announced in 2022 that it aimed to treat 10 tonnes of chicken waste daily. BSF Hatch – which began operations in February 2023 – processes about half of the chicken waste the city generates daily, about 16.5 tonnes.

Tso stated that using fly larvae was better than other biowaste treatment technologies because the conversion process causes minimal secondary pollution, limited to a small amount of sewage. BSF Hatch imports about 1.2 kg of fly eggs from the mainland daily to process the faeces collected from the city’s 29 poultry farms.

Between February 2023 and April this year, the plant processed 6,231 tonnes of chicken waste. Tso added that, with some modifications, the facility could also process food scraps.

The EPD announced a new trial starting in August to treat chicken faeces using “anaerobic co-digestion”. The trial will initially convert 10 tonnes of chicken waste per day into energy, but depending on the effectiveness, it may increase capacity in the future.

A spokesman for the EPD said it would use both pilot projects to help plan “long-term waste treatment arrangements for chicken waste”.

Thomas Chan Ting-hin, environmental affairs officer from the advocacy group The Green Earth, stressed the need for more biowaste treatment facilities in Hong Kong and argued against shutting down BSF Hatch.

“If the plant closes, chicken manure can only go to landfills or O Park,” he said, noting that animal manure produces methane, a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of global warming potential.

Losing the manure-processing plant would add pressure to the valuable space needed for processing food scraps and “create doubt about Hong Kong’s overall capacity to deal with its food waste problem”, he added.

Staff writers

Question prompts:

1. How does BSF Hatch aim to address the city’s food waste problem?

(1) By composting Hong Kong’s organic waste using black soldier fly larvae.
(2) It discards chicken manure.
(3) By generating biofuel.
(4) Through converting chicken faeces into high protein fertiliser.

A. (1), (2)
B. (1), (2), (3)
C. (1), (3)
D. (1), (3), (4)

2. According to Thomas Chan, why is it important to treat chicken waste instead of just sending it to a landfill?

3. How might the closure of biowaste treatment plants like BSF Hatch impact the city’s efforts to address its waste problem? Explain using News, Issue and Glossary.

Question prompts

1. What is pictured in this photo? Explain its use at BSF Hatch using the information in Issue.

2. What are the benefits of this method for treating organic waste? Explain using Issue.

O Park: The name of Hong Kong’s first organic resources recovery centre, located in North Lantau. The centre converts food waste into biogas for electricity generation, and the residue from the process can be turned into compost for landscaping and agriculture use.

biogas: an environmentally-friendly, renewable energy source produced by breaking down organic matter such as food scraps and animal waste

upcycling: reusing waste to create a product of higher quality or value than the original

black soldier fly larvae: the insects that emerge from the recently hatched eggs of black soldier flies. According to Organic Tech, the larvae can decompose 10 tonnes of chicken manure into 1.5 tonnes of animal feed and 3.5 tonnes of organic fertiliser.

biowaste: also called biodegradable waste, it is any organic material in waste that can be easily degraded or broken down by microorganisms or other living things. It includes food waste, sewage, manure and plants.

anaerobic co-digestion: mixing together more than one type of biowaste and processing it into a valuable resource, such as biogas. Research has shown that co-digestion is more efficient than methods that only digest one form of organic waste at a time. Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department said it has successfully used anaerobic co-digestion to process food waste with pig waste.

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News

1. C
2. One benefit of recycling food waste is that it can be used to produce eco-friendly biogas, which can be converted into electricity and fuel power generation. However, smaller operators can face challenges when treating organic waste, as it is prone to hygiene and odour problems, and they might not have enough space to store leftover food.
3. Shopping malls in Hong Kong can set up designated collection points to facilitate cost-effective transportation to the organic waste recovery centre. They can also launch a reward system to incentivise the public to take part. Restaurants and the catering industry can participate in the government’s food waste upcycling pilot scheme, set goals to reduce food waste and introduce strategies to adjust restaurant meal portions.

Chart

1. The average amount of food waste generated daily in Hong Kong has slightly dropped from 2021 to 2022. (accept all reasonable answers)
2. According to News, O Park can only handle 200 tonnes of food waste a day, not even an eighth of the daily food waste generated in Hong Kong in 2022. (accept other reasonable answers)

Issue

1. D
2. Unprocessed animal manure produces methane, a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of global warming potential.
3. Closing biowaste treatment facilities would be a step backwards in Hong Kong’s efforts to tackle waste. BSF Hatch converts chicken waste into useful energy and products. If it were to shut down, chicken manure would go to landfills or put pressure on organic waste centres like O Park, which can’t even treat all of the city’s food waste. It would also sow seeds of doubt about Hong Kong’s ability to deal with the problem. (accept all reasonable answers)

Photo

1. Kenny Tso is holding the larvae of black soldier flies, which are used to process the chicken faeces collected from 29 poultry farms in Hong Kong.
2. Black soldier fly larvae help scientists convert manure into protein, which can be made into animal feed, fertiliser, pet food, and biodiesel. Using fly larvae is better than other biowaste treatment technologies because the conversion process causes minimal secondary pollution. (accept all reasonable answers)