(Hong Kong, 29th June 2013)
Food waste = rubbish. This is what most of the people think. Is it the truth?
Over 3,600 tonnes of food waste is produced in Hong Kong each day. The amount produced has doubled in the last 5 years. The vast majority of this food ends up in landfill, where it is leading to the rapid depletion of our already limited landfill space and imposing a severe burden on the local environment.
In urban climates such as Hong Kong, emissions from decomposing food have a serious negative impact on air quality. In addition to producing wastewater, as food rots in landfill, it releases significant quantities of methane and carbon dioxide – greenhouse gases that capture and retain heat in the atmosphere.
With all these reasons, and in response to UNEP World Environment Day 2013, Go.Asia co-organised with the Junior Chamber International Sha Tin on the “Love the Earth 2013″ campaign – Leftover’s recipe competition & public sharing session in Hong Kong in June 2013, where the closing ceremony and prize presentation were taken place on 29th June 2013 in Ma On Shan Plaza.
During the ceremony, numerous parties including Go.Asia, Food Angel, The Leftovers, Hong Kong Federation of Women’s Centres, and School of Energy and Environment – City University of Hong Kong , were invited to share some insights about food waste and how can we make good use of it.
” We wish to enhance public awareness about food waste problem. We need to cherish our food and trim down the amount of food waste by changing our eating habit. We are trying to introduce organisations who are working so hard on food waste management to the general public, and hope, by getting more supports, to allow more people to be benefited from their services.” said Tommy Lau, Chairman of Love the Earth executive committee.
Stay tuned with us as well as the Food Revolution Asia’s blog, we will share some of the “leftovers” creative recipes with you.
Photos: JCI Shatin
