Hong Kong restaurateurs doubt that a new Hong Kong scheme of waste charges will reduce rubbish at source.
Instead, they warn that it may result in bigger bills for diners and even force small establishments out of business.
Under laws unveiled by environment secretary Wong Kam-sing this week, the commercial sector will have to pay HK$365 (US$47) or HK$395 per tonne of rubbish, depending on the landfill’s location, when the charges come into effect in 2019.
Simon Wong Kit-lung, who owns and manages two companies with more than 30 restaurants, says a 10,000 sqft (929 sqm) Chinese yum cha restaurant produces about four cartloads of waste a day, a weight of between one and 1.5 tonnes. That translates into extra expenditure of $15,000 to $20,000 a month for some of his restaurants, triple the current bill of $10,000 to handle the rubbish, he says.
“The easiest way to offload the extra cost is to slap an extra $1 or $2 on each dish, but this is something I do not wish to do.”
Wong says plenty of alternative ideas were floated by the catering industry during the consultation period. “We felt that instead of charging users across the board, the government should reward those who voluntarily cut down on waste volume.”
Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades president Simon Wong Ka-wo has observed that a lot of the time, the waste is food left over by customers, something restaurants cannot control.
“In Hong Kong, restaurants host banquets totalling 8000 tables of 12 every day. But a quarter of the food on those tables ends up in rubbish bins,” he says. Cooked food cannot be recycled for safety reasons.
He estimates the impending charges will cost most small- to medium-sized restaurants an extra HK$500 a month. “This may not seem a lot, but bear in mind that 30 per cent of restaurants in Hong Kong are losing money, while 40 per cent only break even.
“Any extra expenditure means a lot to the smaller players, which make up 98 per cent of the market.”
