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Help-desk Service for Food Waste Recycling Projects in Housing Estates

 

According to the report “Monitoring of Solid Waste in Hong Kong – Waste Statistics for 2009” published by Environmental Protection Department (EPD), about 3,000 tonnes of food waste is disposed to landfills every day and domestic food waste takes up about 2,000 tonnes which accounts for more than 25% of municipal solid waste.  As landfills become inadequate, domestic food waste management plays an important role in reducing municipal solid waste.   

As the amount of municipal solid waste has been increasing with the economic development over the past decades, we must adopt a more sustainable waste management strategy and hierarchy.  An effective way is to reduce the waste from the source.

 

The waste hierarchy

The Waste Hierarchy 1

1The EU's Waste Framework Directive of 1975 introduced the term waste hierarchy as European waste policy.  In 1989, it was formalised into a hierarchy of management options in the European Commission's Community Strategy for Waste Management and further endorsed in the Commission's review of this strategy in 1996.

 

Therefore, the most effective strategy for food waste management is avoidance and minimization of generating food waste.  The next priority is to separately collect and recycle the inevitable food waste to useful resources. 

In view of this, Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF) has allocated $60 million as subsidy and has launched a funding project, “Food Waste Recycling Projects in Housing Estates”, to encourage the separated collection and recycling of food waste from households in July 2011.

This subsidy will provide funds to support housing estates to set up on-site food waste treatment facilities, i.e. food waste composting machines, and organise food waste collection and recovery programmes and associated activities.  These projects encourage housing estates to engage non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to organise educational and promotional activities in order to raise residents’ awareness towards food waster reduction and encourage their participation in food waste recovery.

EPD has also commissioned the Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) to operate a help-desk service for the potential housing estate applicants and those participating food waste separation, collection and recycling Government departments.  The services include:

  • assisting in identification of a suitable site for installing the food waste treatment facility within the housing estate prior to formal application;
  • providing professional and technical advices to potential applicants or participating government departments during planning and, implementation stages; and
  • conducting evaluation of performance, effectiveness and outcomes.

Hence, this help-desk service is set up jointly by EPD and HKPC for the following parties:

  • Housing Estates or Government Departments who intend to participate the aforesaid project for preparation
  • Suppliers who are interested in supplying the food waste composting machines for the scheme in order to have better understanding to the requirements on food waste recycling in the scheme
  • Anyone who is interested in conducting on-site recycling of source separated food waste

 

For further enquiries to this help-desk, please contact:

“Help-desk Service for Food Waste Recycling Projects
in Housing Estates”
Tel: 2788 5598
Fax: 2788 5608
E-mail: hd-fwrs@hkpc.org
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