Hong Kongers make 900,000 bowls of soup a day on average — which translates into mountains of waste in landfills, according to a new study.
Local NGO Food Grace teamed up with Hong Kong University’s College of International Education to examine food waste generated by 600 local families. They found that discarded soup ingredients — including meat, vegetables and herbs — make up about one-fifth of all household kitchen waste.
That’s an estimated 450 tons of garbage every day from soup alone.
Traditional Chinese soups are valued for their health benefits, but most people, according to Food Grace, toss the healthiest part. Ching bo liang, for example, is a popular tonic brewed with lotus seed, lily bulb and pork bones — ingredients which are usually discarded after the liquid part of the soup is consumed.
To combat food waste from soups, Casey Ng, project officer at Food Grace, advises eating more of the leftovers, and re-cooking them.
“Try to use ingredients that contain less waste and a higher edible portion,” Ng also recommended, in a message to Coconuts HK.
The study found that the average household cooks soup 2.5 times a week. Over one-third of the families surveyed told researchers that most of their household waste is, in fact, soup ingredients.
Food Grace, which re-distributes unsold but still-edible produce to low-income families, is also calling on the government to raise awareness about ways that households can cut down on the amount of food they discard. Ng pointed out most survey respondents mistakenly thought that the bulk of food waste is commercial.
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