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To cut down waste, some Hong Kong restaurants charge for leftovers

Do you miss the good ol' days of childhood? The park, the play dates, the eat-everything-on-your-plate-or-else lectures? Well, we can't fit you on the child-size slide or bring back your pre-K paramour, but if you want to be chided for leaving leftovers, get ye to Hong Kong. In an effort to cut down on excess waste, some restaurants in the territory are fining diners who don't finish their meals. The amount of edibles ending up in the trash of Hong Kong's restaurants, hotels, and food manufacturers has more than doubled in the last five years, and cuisine accounts for one-third of daily landfill waste. And it's not just the trash problem; foodstuffs give off methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as they rot. While the government has set up an experimental composter that converts four tons of food waste a day into mulch, some establishments are taking matters into their own hands: At one upscale diner, patrons must pay 64 cents for every ounce of food they don't ingest.

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Hong Kong becomes major outlet for trade in rare species

Hong Kong has become a linchpin location for smuggling rare species into China, according to some opponents of the trade, who fear that huge demand may wipe out many animal and plant species. In just one notable raid, police discovered that numerous boxes of alleged frozen chicken wings were actually filled with some 2,000 pangolins -- a rare species of anteater prohibited from trade by international treaty -- that had been killed, descaled, frozen, and vacuum-packed on their way to restaurants in southern China. Activists and officials say that Hong Kong's status as a free-trade port and proximity to China -- where many rare animals are prized for their alleged medicinal or aphrodisiacal qualities -- make it an ideal way station for meeting the massive demand in black-market species. And China's rising economic tide means more folks have more money to spend on their fix of endangered critters or protected plants.

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Freezing AC is status symbol at some Asian offices

In some tropical Asian cities, it's become a symbol of luxury to keep offices at an arctic chill. Hong Kong may be the world's coldest city when you're indoors, say researchers, who found the average office temperature is between 70 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit (72 to 78 is considered the optimum human-comfort range indoors). Workers in one office contend with 64-degree summer cooling -- so cold they do yoga in the bathroom to warm up. Patricia Shiu, who actually uses a space heater under her desk to stay warm at her frigid workplace, has joined a resistance movement of "thermal crime" spotters who helped Friends of the Earth compile a list of Hong Kong's most over-chilled buildings. Not only is it an egregious waste of energy, says FOE, but excessive air conditioning is sexist, favoring men in suits and ties over women in their lighter-weight garb. Since launching its campaign, the group says it's been getting a lot of technical inquiries from building managers who don't know how to change the temperature on their AC systems.

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It might be the Magic Kingdom, but sometimes it has to face reality: That's the message of an environmental study released today on a future Disney theme park in Hong Kong. Environmentalists have attacked the $1.8 billion project as an ecological nightmare, and now the report seconds the opinion. The park is slated to be built in Penny's Bay, just southwest of the recently decommissioned Cheoy Lee Shipyard, which must be dismantled to make way for the Mouse. Doing so will involve cutting almost 55,000 cubic yards of earth and rock to stabilize the area, and removing around 114,000 cubic yards of polluted soil, which will then be transported to another site for treatment and decontamination. The study warned that the dismantling process could "cause high level impacts on ecological resources," particularly to rice-fish habitats and protected plant species.

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Growing up green: Breathing for two

Most Hong Kong residents want their government to do a better job tackling environmental problems, according to a survey released over the weekend by Civic Exchange, a public policy think tank. More than 60 percent of the 960 respondents said issues such as pesticides in foods, contaminated seafood, and air and water pollution should be a top priority of the government. Fifty-five percent said they were unhappy with how the government had acted on pollution problems so far. Ninety-two said they would support tougher penalties for littering, while 33 percent admitted they littered because the city was already dirty. Only 19 percent cited environmental problems in mainland China as a concern, even though much of Hong Kong's drinking water comes from China.

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