Argumentative Essay - Food Waste Problem in Hong Kong

                   

Argumentative Essay   Wong Oi Man (Student ID: 53568137) 

                                                                                                         

(1080 words)

Food Waste Problem in Hong Kong

While millions of people in the world teeter on the brink of starvation, people in Hong Kong nonchalantly throw away huge quantities of edible food every day.  Such action, apart from causing economic waste, has set the alarm ringing on local environmental concerns.  This paper gives an insight into the available tactics and argues for the best possible solution to tackle the issue.

            Statistically, our food waste accounts for 40% of the municipal solid waste, which means over 3,000 tonnes of wasted food is sent to landfill each day (EDP, 2012).  According to Karl (2013), two thirds of the food waste comes from households, and a third from the city’s restaurants, supermarkets, food stores, hotels and schools, etc.  As a result, local landfills are under tremendous pressure for they will all reach the maximum capacity by 2018 (LegCo, 2012).  Apparently, seeking an effective solution is imminent.

            First and foremost, let us look at the resort of ‘recycling’, which has the potential.  Take the Food Recovery Challenge Program in the US as a good example.  The unsold food can be donated to food banks for charity.  To go a step further, Taipei implements a mandatory recycling system for compliance by the food and catering industry.  These approaches are worth considering by Hong Kong, as its amount of commercial food waste has increased more than double within 10 years (Feeding Hong Kong, 2012).  Currently, on individual and voluntary basis, Hong Kong has limited recycling practices and the effect is insignificant.  Green Power (2013) reported that there are 25 non-profit organizations in Hong Kong participating in food donation.  Nevertheless, only 5 tonnes of food waste can be collected daily, which is equal to 0.14% of total food waste generated.  So, hardly can this satisfy the aim of reducing overall food waste.

Some people may consider that ‘biotechnology’ plays an important part in recycling.  ‘‘Biotechnology is another alternative,’’ said Carol Lin in BBC news, an assistant professor at City University of Hong Kong.  She is developing a process that turns food waste to bio-plastic and bio-based fuel.  When biotechnology is fully established, it can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels by creating fuel from renewable sources of energy (Fellet, 2012).  However, Fellet (2012) emphasized, ‘‘It can’t produce cost-competitive biofuels right now.’’  Currently, the government is developing organic waste treatment facilities to transform organic waste to useful compost products and biogas for energy recovery.  As informed by EPD (2013), the fully developed facilities in 2017 will have a daily treatment capacity of 500 tonnes organic waste, which is just 1/6 of the total food waste.  As such, investment on biotechnology is paying it forward to help alleviate the problem only.

Another tactic we heard of is the imposition of municipal solid waste ‘charging’, which would induce food waste reduction.  According to Chan (2013), for every 1.12 kg of food a three-person household consumes a day, yet another 1 kg of food will end up being dumped to landfill.  This explains why food waste contributes substantially to solid waste.  Since solid waste charging deters people from dumping food lavishly without first considering recycling, some countries have proved its effectiveness, like the waste generated decreased approximately 60% in Taipei and 40% in Seoul accordingly (Green Power, 2012).  Thus, solid waste charging is an effective measure.

In Hong Kong, solid waste charging is under public consultation by government as a priority issue.  As advised by the Council for Sustainable Development, municipal solid waste charging is a complicated matter as it affects a wide group of stakeholders, and thus community consensus is required.  Among the issues, actions need to be done to fight against illegal dumping.  If a household-based charging mechanism is adopted, high management cost would be incurred to petrol and charge those household families or commercial entities that dump their solid waste to public litter bins. Since a fee charging system will bring inconvenience and pose some financial burden to the people, the government needs to acquire public consensus.

For the best solution, it is argued that enforcing a ‘mandatory’ food waste recycling system for the domestic and commercial sectors of Hong Kong glimmers better hopes.  We all know that Hong Kong is a densely-populated city, with 2.3 million households sharing 1,100 square kilometres of land (Council for Sustainable Development, 2013).  On the one hand, high population density facilitates waste food collection and transportation.  On the other hand, it could be hard to find the space to accommodate collection points and stations as well as to ensure sanitation.  However, even with the constraints, Hong Kong is actually not very different from Korea or Taiwan, and so a comprehensive and well-established recycling system should be fully considered and enforced by government.

Also for the best solution, implementing municipal solid waste charging is unavoidable in Hong Kong.  It is suggested that an incentive scheme of an agreeable form could be run in parallel to enhance compliance, such as, the government can provide cash subsidies or tax rebates to help those grassroots families affected.  To curb illegal dumping and to lessen the burden of supervision, mutual surveillance can be employed in the neighbourhood.  As in Taipei and Seoul, neighbours who report are rewarded in the case of successful prosecution (Council for Sustainable Development, 2013).  Apart from this, Taipei timely closes some refuse collection points and public litter bins to prevent illegal dumping (Karl, 2013).  These are measures we can consider. 

In the meantime, education for public awareness to reduce food waste is crucially important.  Education can help instil a message of food waste reduction in people’s mind and help develop self-discipline of people in the long term.  The recent Food Wise Hong Kong Campaign is a good start of it.  Fan (2012) referred that Wong Kam-Sing, secretary for the Environment, saw this kind of campaign as engaging the individuals to reduce food waste and promote good practice on food waste reduction.  Noticeably, the South Korean government sets every Wednesday as ‘The Day of No Food Waste’ (Green Power, 2013), reflecting its efforts done on educating people to treasure food.  Therefore, whole-population education should be enhanced accordingly.

Believe it or not, more than 300,000 children in Hong Kong cannot always get three meals a day (Lee, 2013).  Apparently, food is a precious resource and we should not waste any of it.  Through the combination of mandatory food waste recycling, municipal solid waste charging and whole-population education, it is believed that the food waste problem in Hong Kong can best be solved.

References:

Chan M. (2013, October 16). In the face of global hunger, Hong Kong must stop wasting food. South China Morning Post. Retrieved from http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1332450/face-global-hunger-hong-kong-must-stop-wasting-food

Council for Sustainable Development. (2013). Strengthening Waste Reduction: Is Waste Charging an Option? Retrieved from http://www.susdev.gov.hk/html/en/council/Paper01-12Annexe.pdf

Council for Sustainable Development. (2013). Uniqueness and Characteristics of Hong Kong Setting. Retrieved from http://www.susdev.org.hk/english/irdoc/irdoc_3.php#3.1

Environmental Protection Department. (2012). Monitoring of Solid Waste in Hong Kong. Retrieved from https://www.wastereduction.gov.hk/en/materials/info/msw2011.pdf

Environmental Protection Department. (2013). Food Waste Challenge. Retrieved from http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/waste/prob_solutions/food_waste_challenge.html

Environmental Protection Department. (2013). Organic Waste Treatment Facilities. Retrieved from http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/waste/prob_solutions/WFdev_OWTF.html

Environmental Protection Department. (2011). Development of Organic Waste Treatment Facilities, Phase 2. Retrieved from http://www.epd.gov.hk/eia/register/profile/latest/esb226/esb226.pdf

Fan F. (2012, December 04). Govt gets involved to cut food waste. China Daily. Retrieved from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hkedition/2012-12/04/content_15982334.htm

Feeding Hong Kong. (2012). Food Waste Stats. Retrieved from http://feedinghk.org/food-waste-stats/

Fellet M. (2012, August 29). Starbucks' Food Waste Fuels Experimental Biorefinery. QUEST The Science of Sustainability. Retrieved from http://science.kqed.org/quest/2012/08/29/starbucks-food-waste-fuels-experimental-biorefinery/

Green Power. (2012, February). Don't delay on waste charging! – Learning from the successful case of Taipei. Retrieved from http://www.greenpower.org.hk/html/eng/2012_2.shtml

Hunt K. (2013, January 02). Banquet-loving Hong Kong grapples with mountain of food waste. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20807819

Irvine D. (2013, January 21). Hong Kong’s mounting food waste problem. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2013/01/21/world/asia/hong-kong-food-waste/index.html?hpt=hp_bn8

Karl W. (2013, April 19). Mounting heaps of garbage. China Daily. Retrieved from http://www.chinadailyasia.com/business/2013-04/19/content_15073047.html

Lee D. (2013. September 2). Beating waste and putting food on plates for needy. South China Morning Post. Retrieved from http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1301375/beating-waste-and-putting-food-plates-needy

Legislative Council of Hong Kong. (2012). The Hong Kong Waste Problem. Retrieved from http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr12-13/chinese/panels/ea/duty_v/eavp1304-4-ec.pdf

United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2012). Food Recovery Challenge. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/smm/foodrecovery/