Food waste is a significant component of the waste sent to landfill in Hong Kong. Since 2005, when we installed our first food decomposer at one of our Hong Kong shopping malls, we have been working with our hotels, restaurants and tenants to deepen our food waste reduction and recycling efforts. In 2020, we collected more than 7000 tonnes of food waste from our Hong Kong and Chinese mainland portfolios and hotels.
In Hong Kong, we introduced food waste recycling to South Island Place and the new Citygate Outlets extension. At Citygate, Cityplaza, Taikoo Place, Pacific Place, and Island Place, over 70% of food and beverage tenants participated in food waste recycling. Most of the food waste collected goes to the Hong Kong government’s O.Park for conversion into compost and biogas.
We are also promoting the recycling of food waste and coffee grounds to our office tenants. This year, the number of tenanted floors participating in these programmes quadrupled.
Communication is key to raising awareness and getting more tenants involved. In 2020, we issued an informative waste e-newsletter to office and retail tenants in Hong Kong, suggesting practical actions that tenants can adopt to “greenify” their workplace. In parallel, new eye-catching posters were created to help tenants properly recycle paper, plastics, metals, glass bottles, and food waste.
In the Chinese mainland, we worked closely with tenants to prepare for the introduction of compulsory garbage sorting in Beijing in such ways as advising them on the placement of new recycling bins.