food waste and art

Food waste

With modern technology, food waste can be converted into energy, composted, and processed into animal feed after recycling. However, Hong Kong discards over 3,000 tons of food waste every day, which takes up 30% of the municipal solid waste. Yet during its first phase, the organic resource recycling center in Siu Ho Wan could only process 200 tons of food waste every day.See this news article on hk.on.cc Furthermore, industrial and commercial industries avoid contributions to organic resource recycling centers due to high transportation costs, and many farmers are anxious of recycled pig feed due to the threat of swine fever. Consequently, in Hong Kong the majority of biodegradable food waste ends up being sent to landfills.On this, see epd.gov.hk The Environmental Protection Department of the Hong Kong government tries to reduce waste and turn food waste into energy. This includes education campaigns that target the general public.

Art

Examples of other Hong Kong artists who engage with food and food waste include So Wing Po, whose installations transform medical ingredients into artworks.See video above. Another video can also be found on VimeoOutside of Hong Kong, thought-provoking and eye-catching examples of artworks and designs that engage with food waste world-wide include Studio Rygalik’ “Bread Experience” of 2012 (See image above) and the “Skulls” series by Dimitri Sykalow (Fig 8). In the lamp department, we find, besides the garlic lamp, lotus-like shapes made of shells by the designer Al B. Caronan from the Philippines (Fig 9) and the Malaysian designer Carolyn Joan Lau’s lamp shades that upcycle plastic bottles of the popular Japanese probiotic milk drink ‘Yakult’ (Fig 10).