China is troubled by the’food waste’ problem. At the direction of President Xi Jinping, a bill was created to prevent food waste. You can even pay a fine of up to 17 million won if you do’eating room’ that promotes waste.
This is Park Sung-hoon, correspondent in Beijing.
[기자]
After ordering a variety of dishes and sharing them, Chinese food is relatively rich.
A restaurant with more group customers will have more food thrown away.
[장더칭/산시성 음식물 수거업체 직원 : 많을 때는 하루 7~8통 이상 나오는데 보면 좀 안타깝죠. 면, 채소, 고기, 생선, 닭까지 다 버려요.]
The annual food waste is 35 million tons, a huge amount that can fill 40,000 football fields to a height of 1 meter.
More than a tenth of all food production goes out as garbage.
Chinese video applications such as TikTok also played a part in the so-called ‘Mokbang’ video with ‘binge eating’.
In this situation, countermeasures were prepared under the special direction of President Xi Jinping.
At the National People’s Congress, which is the national parliament of our country, it has been deliberating on the bill to ban food waste.
Meals at official events are based on a standard diet, and extra fees are charged for leftovers.
In particular,’eating room’ that promotes food waste is prohibited at all, and if caught, a fine of up to 17 million won must be paid with our money.
The reactions are mixed.
[리모 씨/베이징 시민 : 이건 중국 음식 문화의 약점이기도 해서 개선이 필요하다고 생각합니다.]
[장모 씨/베이징 식당 주인 : 법이 생겨도 효과가 없을 것 같아요. 사람마다 달라서 개인에게 달려 있습니다.]
In China, where the catering and food delivery industries are rapidly spreading due to the rising economic power, food waste produced by 1.4 billion people has emerged as another headache.
(Video Design: Lee Chang-Hwan / Video Graphics: Kim Jung-eun)