Fining Full Diners
19th April 2007
by Katie
In the past 5 years the amount of wasted food coming out of restaurants, hotels and food manufacturers in Hong Kong has more than doubled. This food accounts for 1/3 of the 9 300 tons of waste that go to the landfills every day in Hong Kong, in the US 12 % of the waste is from food. The landfills are starting to fill up - and they obviously have a maximum capacity, not to mention the food in a landfills gives of methane.
The solutions in Hong Kong have been the following…:
Setting up experimental composters which will transform 4 tons of food waste a day into soil conditioner, convincing hotels and catering businesses to truck their waste to recycling centers, charging people for leaving leftovers and installing “digesters” in their basements.
The machine, a large stainless steel chest, is maintained at a steady 37 degrees Centigrade (98.6 degrees F.), and fed three times a day with leftovers and a handful of rice husks impregnated with enzymes that speed up decomposition. Every hour, a set of turbine blades churns the food up for a minute and by the time the process is over 100 kilos of noodles, croissants, green vegetables, meatballs, crispy duck, you name it, has been reduced to five kilos of sludge, several liters of water and a puff of CO2. The sludge then goes to the dump.
That is not just wasteful; it is unprofitable for restaurateurs. One restaurant charges HK$5 (US64 cents) per ounce of leftovers.
“All you can eat” sushi joints also have a problem with diners who pile their plates high and then simply eat the raw fish off the top, leaving the rice. One sushi restaurateur, according to local media, charges HK$10 (US$1.28) per leftover sushi.
There is something so fundamentally wrong here. Where other countries are striving to find just enough food to feed their families Hong Kong is having to charge people to finish their food.. People will actually pay to walk away from food that others would die for just to have it sent to their families. Wouldn’t it make more sense to limit the amount of food being given? Eliminate “all you can eat”s and just give people reasonable portions that they will be able to finish.
The gap between the affluence of countries never ceases to amaze me - and the greediness of those in the affluent countries is just disgusting. We wallow in our own food filth, piling it in landfills and letting it excrete methane into the air - while others starve to death. Sickening isn’t it?
(source)
(cross posted at lib-deb)
April 20th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I don’t know why they don’t just change the food preparation, instead of keep insisting of serving same food but only eating the portion consumer like.
Well. time to just serve what people like and charge double right?
Tho’ gotta admit. The far east is paradise of food. They have 5000 yrs to perfect the art of eating. Cantonese specially.
April 20th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Squashed–
In my whole life, I’ve only met one person who doesn’t like Chinese food: my brother. When I lived in Brisbane, his wife and I would go out for Chinese food whenever he was flying out of the country (usually to Taipei, heh), because otherwise she’d never get to eat it.
Also, I stumbled on a great way to get free food at a Chinese restaurant: claim that you’ve never had Chinese food before. Every time I’ve tried it, the restaurant manager insists on providing samples of a couple of the dishes that I didn’t order.
April 20th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
yeah that works everytime for me too. Specially if you are in hotel and things are moving slowly, usually mid week and the chef is working his round greeting customer.
Too bad the japanese isn’t that big into that sort of thing. heh… I could always use some super expensive sushi with rare beluga on top of it. haa haa…
Here is my rule of eating:
when in Chinese speaking area, always eat things that need extremely elaborate preparation. lots of labor to prepare. So meat that is sliced super thin with twenty million different vegies, elaborate noodles, rare delicatessen, steps preparations,…
When in tropics. Eat the fresh vegetable and fruits. That’s what nature create tropics for.
When in Japan, eat all the fish you can get, but make somebody else pay for it.
I like Indian food too. Extremely exotic spices. tho’ I am not so sure what are behind those spices. They must have several thousand years figuring out how to use several hundreds of those different spices.
things I can’t understand: Why food in the UK is so bad. I mean they run an empire. The very least they can pick better eating style. Same with german. I can’t figure out why. All the wealth, and they only eat fried stuff, chunky meat and salty stuff. It’s like road diner or something.
French on the other hand really knows food. (extremely elaborate layers, colors, spices, completely weird souces, hours and hours of preparations, etc.)
April 20th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
The only experience I’ve had with Japan was 2 hours in the Tokyo airport. And I wasn’t able to force anyone to buy me fish.
As for the UK, you’re so right. If you don’t cook your own food, you have only two choices: Indian food, or crap.
April 21st, 2007 at 11:07 pm
You are all such connoisseurs of food
I must confess my quick cook style, means, take the meat out of the freezer, defreeze, and slice it, throw it into the pressure cooker. Cut and throw in some carrots, and add some dried cranberry, and prepare the pressure cooker to heat over the stove for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes or so, the whistle sounds, lower the flame and turn down the flame lower and let it boil for another 10 minutes. That’s dinner for two. The meat varies, chicken to pork, and the vegetables vary. If the vegetables need less cooking, will add the vegetables , like cut collard green, after the rest have been thoroughly cooked. If I use the toaster oven to bake fish, I throw the cutlet into a pyrex bowl and add in some slices of cut cheese. Throw in some cut zucchini, and let it bake at about 400 degrees for about 15-20 minutes, and that’s baked fish. The biggest effort is shopping and then separating the fish/meat bought in bulk and bagging them to store in the freezer. So today, shopping for the week, I decided to try cooking some pasta after seeing a packet of spaghetti sauce. It says, “All you need” is 1 can (6oz) tomato paste. I went up and down the various aisles to look for this paste. Kept looking for the word, ‘paste’ and found it. Maybe this is the first brave new step.
April 22nd, 2007 at 2:10 am
OMM–
If you ever move to England, you’ll fit right in.
By the way, the supermarket is the last bastion of customer service. So if there’s something you’re not able to find, just ask a store employee and they’ll be happy to help you.
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:05 am
Mediterranean food/diet is the proven healthiset way to eat. At our house, over the last 20 years or so we’ve stuck to it as closely as it’s possible to - here in the UK, anyway. Of course, in the middle of winter I still love lots of meat (based),roasts, stews, broths and soups (wherein both, lentils & barley rule). I seem to have cycles of about three months when I switch ’staples’. From spuds to rice to pasta and back again.
Also, I’m absolutely addicted to the very, very hottest Madras curries on earth - which over the years I’ve become a dab-hand at using with English dishes even more so than Chinese.
Btw, we threw our frying pan away yonks & yonks ago. And as for sausages and hamburgers, yuk, I won’t even allow them in the house nowadays — not since I watched a TV programme re; their making/manufacture many years ago.
April 24th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
The most appalling cooking show I ever saw was in the making of chicken nuggets…where after grinding up a lot of questionable chickenish parts, the chef threw in an equal potion of gelatinous fat parts and then processed it all together for making patties to be breaded and fried.
Then he presented the fried-to-perfection golden morsels to the kids who had been observing. For some reason, they no longer wanted their favorite food…
April 24th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I love how all those cooking show makes complicated dish looks so easy. 5 seconds in the oven, it’s perfect brown. 2 second toss in the pan fry, it’s crisp to perfection.
How come that never works out with me?
April 24th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Don’t ask me. I used to have trouble operating my sister’s Easy Bake Oven.
April 25th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
you are definitely untrainable for domestic uses.
April 25th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
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January 17th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Here’s a simple solution, that’s money in the bank, Restaurants in the USA send they’re “slop” to pig farms for animal feed or you can send it to the Pet Food factory where it’s processed into multiple types of animal feed.
And the Japanese also use it as fertilizer & fuel (methane gas)
Why the hell Hong Kong does it this way is stupid.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I would like to ask for your permission for the use of the picture”Fining Full Diners”. This picture will be used in my educational website that is part of the contest “Trio Think Quest”.Thank you and reply as soon as possible.
July 28th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Noe Cruz–
I don’t own any rights to this photo, and I don’t have any information as to who took it or how they can be reached. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.