What to do about the growing amount of food waste we generate is a significant issue both locally and globally. Hong Kong alone generates over 3,000 tonnes of food waste each day, accounting for about one-third of all municipal solid waste. Most of this comes from households, restaurants, hotels, supermarkets, and food processing industries. This vast amount of food discarded daily largely ends up in landfills, which are quickly reaching capacity, and contributes to already serious environmental problems such as greenhouse gas emissions. As such, food waste management is hot topic for the governing bodies of Hong Kong and other cities. In Hong Kong, the government has been taking steps to address this problem with initiatives such as the Food Wise Hong Kong Campaign which aims to promote the reduction of food waste at the source and raise public awareness of the issue. There has also been investment in organic waste treatment facilities to convert food waste into compost and biogas such as O-PARK1. However, despite these efforts, food waste management remains a challenge due to over-ordering, food consumption/disposal habits, and an overall lack of recycling facilities. As effective waste management is an integral part of becoming a sustainable city of the future, often referred to as a “smart city”, there is a pressing need for effective solutions to this problem, and technology can be of great help. In this blog, we will look at some innovative solutions for food waste management in smart cities, primarily the use of smart food waste recycling bins.
In Hong Kong the Environmental Campaign Committee (ECC), with funding from the Environmental and Conservation Fund, is supporting the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) to roll out the "Pilot Scheme on Food Waste Smart Recycling Bins in Private Housing Estates". This aims to install and maintain food waste smart bins at various large private housing estates around the city.
A smart food waste recycling bin, such as the one above developed by GF Technovation, have a range of intelligent functions leveraging IoT, AI and other technologies to transform them from “dumb” bins to “smart” bins. For instance, embedded IoT sensors detect the fill-level which helps to optimize waste collection schedules and routes. They are equipped with auto-deodorizing and sterilization features to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and odours. And perhaps most importantly, they help to support waste disposal charging schemes by verifying users by card or QR scanning. It then weighs the waste disposed of by that individual and records it automatically to enable effective and fair charging.
This combination of features aims to encourage food waste reduction at source as well as effective and hygienic waste collection and storage before it is transported to a recycling facility such as O-PARK1.
In order to become a true smart city, governments must address the issue of food waste management to ensure a better and more sustainable environment for residents. The uptake of smart city solutions must continue, and with companies such as GF Technovation constantly utilising advances IoT, AI and robotics to develop innovative and effective ways to make our lives better, there is no excuse not to. To learn more about GF Technovation’s smart city solutions, click here.
