The Environmental Protection Department today launched an 18-month food waste collection trial scheme in public rental housing (PRH) estates.

In the first phase of the exploratory project, the department will progressively install smart recycling bins to collect food waste in about 30 blocks of five PRH estates under the Housing Department and the Housing Society.

At today’s publicity event held at Shek Pai Wan Estate in Aberdeen to promote the scheme, Secretary for Environment & Ecology Tse Chin-wan said domestic food waste currently accounts for about 70% of the total quantity of food waste disposed of in landfills.

Due to the fact that two million people live in PRH estates, the trial scheme targets PRH residents to encourage the practices of food waste source separation, collection and recycling, which can mitigate environmental hygiene problems caused by food waste and make good use of organic resources, he explained.

Mr Tse stressed that the Government will gain more experience in food waste collection via the trial scheme to formulate a set of practical and cost-effective sustainable solutions for proper domestic food waste collection and progressively extend the plan to more PRH estates in the city to tie in with the implementation of municipal solid waste charging.

The five properties covered in the first phase are Shek Pai Wan Estate in Aberdeen, Choi Tak Estate in Ngau Tau Kok, Sheung Tak Estate in Tseung Kwan O, Kwun Lung Lau in Kennedy Town and Lin Tsui Estate in Chai Wan.

In the short term, the trial scheme will be extended to a total of 100 blocks of PRH estates in 2023-24, involving about 150,000 residents.

The experiment calls for using smart recycling bins equipped with overflow prevention and odour abatement devices to collect food waste and maintain environmental hygiene.

The food waste collected will be delivered to O • PARK1 for treatment and conversion into energy and compost.

The department will strengthen the publicity and education of the scheme, coupled with the GREEN$ Electronic Participation Incentive Scheme, to incentivise residents to participate in the project.

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