Access to Food in Hong Kong - Weeblymrpronan.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/8/3/37835975/... · Source: Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart (2009)! Task 5: The information

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Access  to  Food  in  Hong  Kong    Poverty  in  Hong  Kong      ‘In  affluent  Hong  Kong,  it  is  easy  to  think  of  hunger  as  a  problem  that  exists  elsewhere:  a  problem  of  countries  struggling  with  famine,  warfare  or  abject  poverty.  But  hunger  is  much  closer  to  home  than  most  people  think:  more  than  1.5  million  people  in  our  city  suffer  from  food  insecurity.    Since  the   financial  crisis  of   late  2008  and  with  the  more  recent  dramatic   increase   in   inflation,  more  and  more  people  in  Hong  Kong  are  crossing  the  line  from  just  getting  by,  to  not  being  able  to  afford  to  eat   three   nutritious   meals   a   day.   These   people   include   children,   seniors   and   working   families,  refugees,  migrant  workers  and  the  unemployed.  They  live  in  our  communities.  They  work  around  us.  They  share  many  of  the  same  interests  and  goals  that  we  do.    While  most  of  us  think  it  could  never  happen  here,  the  reality  is  that  hunger  does  exist  in  Hong  Kong,  and  it  is  our  duty  to  stop  it.  We  all  need  to  tackle  the  issue  of  hunger  here  at  home  as  well  as  continue  to  support  the  global  fight  against  hunger  and  malnutrition.’    Source:  http://feedinghk.org/hunger-­‐in-­‐hk/,  accessed  Sunday,  17  April  2016      Poverty  Statistics  in  Hong  Kong  –  2012    

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 Task  1:  In  the  following  table,  rank  the  statistics  in  order  of  importance  (1  =  most  important  and  10  =  least  important)  as  to  how  you  see  poverty  in  Hong  Kong      Statistic     Order  of  importance    

• 1  in  5  people  in  live  in  poverty    

• The  poverty  line  for  a  one-­‐person  family  is  

HK$3,275  per  month  

• 40%  of  the  Hong  Kong  population  live  in  

subsidized  public  housing  

• 100,000  people  live  in  coffin,  cage  homes  and  

rooftops  

• Over  1,000  people  are  homeless    

• Hong  Kong  has  highest  income  gap  between  

the  rich  and  the  poor  of  any  developed  

economy  in  the  world  

• The  minimum  wage,  introduced  in  2011,  is  

HK$28  per  hour  

• There  are  650,000  working  poor    

• 300,000  children  do  not  get  3  meals  a  day    

• 1  in  3  seniors  struggle  to  meet  their  basic  

nutritional  needs  

 Sources: Hong Kong Council of Social Services, Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, SOCO, Oxfam Hong Kong      Task  2:  Considering  your  choice  of  the  top-­‐3  statistics  regarding  poverty  in  Hong  Kong,  explain  why  you  chose  these  statistics  as  opposed  to  other  statistics  from  the  list.            

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 Food  Waste    Food   waste  or  food  loss   is  food  that   is   discarded   or   lost   or   uneaten.   It   can   be   cooked   food   or   raw  ingredient  including  any  leftovers,  bones,  shells  of  crustaceous,  eggshells  and  fruit  peels.  The  causes  of  food   waste  or   loss   are   numerous,   and   occur   at   the   stages   of   production,   processing,   retailing   and  consumption.    Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_waste,  accessed  Sunday,  17  April  2016      Task   3:   Can   you   think   of   three   organizations/areas  where   people   gather   in  Hong  Kong   that   could  have   a   problem   with   food   waste?   List   them,   and   then   identify   some   of   the   reasons   for   why   the  problem  of  food  waste  occurs  in  these  places.        Food  Waste  Statistics  in  Hong  Kong        

   Source: Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department (2011-2012)    Task 4: Calculation time!!!

(a) If 3200 tonnes of food are sent to the landfill every day, how many tonnes of food are disposed of in Hong Kong every year?

(b) How many double decker buses would be required to transport the food waste to the landfills every year?

(c) How many tonnes of edible food do supermarkets in Hong Kong dispose of every week? (d) How many years did it take Commercial & Industrial food waste to double in Hong Kong?

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Global food waste statistics Food waste is also an issue around the world:

• Globally, one-third of the food produced for human consumption is lost, about 1.3 billion tonnes

• 10% of developed countries’ greenhouse gas emissions come from growing food that is never eaten

• An estimated 20 to 40% of UK fruit and vegetables are rejected before they reach the shops, mostly

because they do not match the supermarkets’ strict standards

• In North America and Oceania, 50 percent of the fish and seafood caught is wasted

• According to the UK’s Waste Resources and Action Programme (WRAP), if we stopped wasting

food that could be eaten, it would be equivalent to taking one in five cars off the road

Source: Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by Tristram Stuart (2009)  

Task 5: The information on global food waste statistics is making a reference to some concept we have

studied before. Can you remember what this concept is?

Composition of Municipal Food Waste (MSW) in Hong Kong in 2012

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Task 6: Answer the following questions:

a) Find out what the term ‘putrescibles’ stands for

b) If in 2012, total MSW was 9278 tonnes per day, how many tonnes did putrescibles account for?

c) How many items in the pie chart can you identify that can be recycled in Hong Kong?

d) Which of the items you identified in part (c) are in your opinion most easily recyclable?

Disposal of Food waste in Hong Kong If you look at the graphic below (Figure 3), domestic food waste in red illustrates the food waste that

households dispose of each year – in 2011 this is approximately 3,600 tonnes of food waste every day. On

the other hand, Commercial and Industrial sources (C&I food waste) accounted for 1,100 tonnes.

Task 7: Answer the following questions:

a) In 2011, if households and commercial & industrial sources produced 4700 tonnes per day of food

waste, what percentage did households account for?

b) Taking the average daily disposal quantity of food waste in Hong Kong (yellow + blue + red

columns) between 2003 and 2012, has there been any significant change in this quantity (tonnes)

during this period?

c) Observe the trend in the line ‘food waste per capita’ (kg/person/day) what was the best and worst

year for the amount of food waste per capita?

d) Which of the columns (yellow, red and blue) is larger in 2012 in comparison to 2003? How do you

think this could have happened?

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How does Hong Kong compare to our friends in Taipei and Seoul?

Task 8: Answer the following questions:

a) Look at the graphic above (Figure 4) regarding food waste, how does Hong Kong compare to Seoul and Taipei City?

b) How come, Seoul and Taipei City have the same tonne per capita (0.07) of food waste, yet Seoul has much more absolute tonnes of food waste (767000 tonnes compared to 182,000 tonnes)?

c) What reasons could explain why Hong Kong creates far less food waste than these two other Asian cities?

Take a look at this video; it may be able to help you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWITc7AlWN8

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Strategies to improve the situation of food waste in Hong Kong ‘Preventing and reducing food waste saves resources and cut environmental impacts. According to UNEP, roughly a third of the food produced in the world for human consumption is wasted or lost every year, amount to 1.3 billion tonnes annually. This amounts to a major squandering of resources, including land, water, energy, labour and capital that had gone into producing the food, and needlessly produced GHG, expediting climate change’

Source: UNEP, “Food Waste Facts”, http://www.unep.org/wed/quickfacts/.

Task 9: Video time a) Watch the following clips – Hong Kong choking on Food waste -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC_Uw5HbRcg Food waste problem in Hong Kong - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idJ-v0I8Gdo

b) Using the graphic below on the Food waste management hierarchy (Figure 5), please identify where the strategies spoken about in the two videos would appear in the food waste management hierarchy

c) The graphic below is called an ‘reverse hierarchy’ or ‘inverted pyramid’, what do you think these terms mean?

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Food Banks What is a food bank? A food bank is a charitable organization that collects, sorts, stores and distributes donated food within a community. Traditionally, a food bank does not distribute food directly to those in need. Instead, it serves a network of local charities, whom in turn feed the hungry. The world’s first food bank was the St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance, which was established in 1967 in Arizona, U.S.A. Food banking is about ensuring good food does not go to waste but is instead safely and efficiently redistributed to those in need. So, instead of buying food, a food bank will work closely with the local food industry to “rescue” excess food and ensure it is not unnecessarily sent to landfill. Like any for-profit food organization, food banks take great care to ensure they only distribute food of the highest standard. Most charities do not have the transportation, space or manpower to collect, sort and store a pallet or truckload of donated food but a food bank is specifically set up to do just this. It is able to “bank” large quantities of excess food in a centralized warehouse, and with help from volunteers, sort, pack and re-distribute it through a network of partner charities. With thousands of food banks on every continent, there are many different models but these are some of the key elements shared by food banks around the world. Task 10 Food Banks around the World – identify whether the food bank operates in a country above or below the equator line Food Bank Country

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Stories from other schools ‘A good example is Ma On Shan Ling Liang Primary School, which involves daily volunteer parent helpers. About 720 participating students join the programme, while 170 students bring their own packed lunch. The school has also set up a small on-site composter to convert food waste into fertilizer, which is used for their own school organic farming. The programme results in substantial reduction in disposable lunch boxes and utensils, with 90% waste reduction from lunch. After the implementation of the scheme, the school generates about 4.5 – 6 kg of food waste per day, or about 0.006 – 0.008 kg per student. Sing Yin Secondary School set up its own environmental policy and introduced knowledge and skills for practising a wide range of measures by students and staff. As regards food waste reduction, the school has set up food waste recycling facility and other green initiatives, such as working with the school’s food kiosk operator to avoid and reduce food waste. In the past, the operator would prepare extra lunch boxes every day to meet contingent needs but that often resulted in a surplus that endedup having to be dumped. The new practice offers soup noodles and other snacks to meet extra demands as they arose, thus avoiding food waste.’ Source: http://www.enb.gov.hk/en/files/FoodWastePolicyEng.pdf Can technology save the day? Task 11: Watch the following video clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d1npE1pLrU- and identify the ways in which this particular technology could help reduce food waste Turning food waste into energy Task 12: Watch the following video clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z71_penjFkI - and write a paragraph about how the authorities in California are able to convert food waste into renewable energy

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Hong Kong Government Initiative The graphic below illustrates the Hong Kong Government’s plans to reduce food waste by 40% by the year 2022

Task 13: Can you think of any ways in which we as a community of people in VSA can help the Hong Kong government achieve this objective? Task 14: Write a one-paragraph reflection of what you have learned in this unit