Food Waste Reduction and Recycling
Food waste is a significant component of the waste sent to landfill in Hong Kong. Since 2005, when Swire Properties 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 2023, we collected more than 10,300 tonnes of food waste from our Hong Kong and Chinese Mainland portfolios and our hotels.
In Hong Kong, Swire Properties continues to promote food waste recycling among tenants. In 2023, over 80% of our F&B tenants and 97 tenanted office floors in Citygate Outlets, Cityplaza, Island Place Mall, Pacific Place, South Island Place, and Taikoo Place participated in our food waste recycling programme. Most of the food waste collected in our Hong Kong portfolio and hotels was sent to the government’s O.PARK 1 facility for conversion into biogas and compost.
In June, EAST Beijing participated in the “Pride on Our Plates” campaign which aimed to promote sustainable practices and reduce food waste at restaurants in the Chinese Mainland. During the campaign, a six-week food waste audit was conducted at the hotel focusing on pre-consumer food waste, customer plate waste and unconsumed cooked dishes. The data revealed that customer plate waste was found to be the primary contributor to food waste. The hotel then implemented food waste reduction measures such as adjusting food portion sizes and repurposing pre-consumer food waste into new dishes, which led to a 12% reduction in food waste by the final week of the campaign.
Food Waste Reduction and Recycling
Coffee Grounds Recycling
In late 2023, we began engaging with a new coffee grounds recycling partner, a local green enterprise committed to promoting eco-farming, sustainable organic stewardship of land and food, and healthy lifestyles. Coffee grounds collected from our F&B and office tenants will be transformed into high-quality organic compost. In parallel, we are exploring opportunities to “close the loop” by applying this compost in landscaping projects across our portfolios.
Coffee Grounds Recycling
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Beverage Carton Recycling
In 2022, we partnered with a Hong Kong facility to begin recycling beverage cartons from our internal offices and a few F&B outlets and office tenants at One Island East. This collaboration has allowed us to support the local recycling industry and convert beverage cartons into valuable resources such as paper pulp, recycled paper tissue and other paper products.
This year, due to a growing interest among our tenants, we made the programme available to all office tenants in our Hong Kong portfolio. To ensure clean recycling, we designed posters to clearly explain the proper recycling steps, such as removing plastic caps and straws, cutting and flattening the boxes, as well as rinsing, cleaning and drying the boxes before placing them into dedicated recycling bins. In total, 25 tenant companies have actively participated in the programme.
Beverage Carton Recycling
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