Gwangju Dong-gu Introduces 'Zero Food Waste Reward System' for Public Officials Using In-House Cafeterias

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Dong-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City (Mayor Im Taek) is attracting attention by introducing a ‘Zero Food Waste Reward System’ for district office employees who use the in-house cafeteria.

According to Dong-gu on the 25th, the ‘Zero Food Waste Reward System’ is a project that adds an environmental improvement fee of 200 won to the existing meal cost, then implements a newly introduced ‘Food Waste Self-Evaluation System’ to select outstanding employees and provide incentives.

The collected environmental improvement fees are fully refunded to the selected employees through monthly evaluations, and the method of measuring food waste amounts and providing incentives is also receiving positive responses from employees.

The self-evaluation system allows employees to voluntarily measure their own food waste amount and check their real-time scores using a touchscreen installed at the cafeteria entrance after meals. Additionally, extra serving stations have been installed to facilitate additional servings, encouraging employees to take only the amount of food they need from the start, thereby reducing food waste.

While the amount of food waste generated from vegetables and cooking ingredients in the district office cafeteria was about 98 kg per day on average, the amount of food waste decreased by about 50% during the pilot operation period of the self-evaluation system. It is expected that once the system is fully established, there will be an annual reduction effect of more than 40%.

Im Taek, Mayor of Dong-gu, said, “We will reduce the amount of waste generated by more than 15% by 2022,” and added, “To this end, the administration will take the lead in practicing various methods to reduce waste and create a clean Dong-gu.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.