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September 10, 2013, 12:16 PM
Hong Kong Threw Away 2 Million Mooncakes
Finished mooncakes sit in individual trays at Caritas Hong Kong’s La Vie Bakery food factory in Hong Kong on Sept. 7, 2012.
It’s mooncake season again in China—that time of year that leaves stomachs, landfills and environmentalists groaning.
Last year, in Hong Kong alone, residents threw out nearly two million moon cakes, according to a survey conducted by local environmental group Green Power, and similar figures are likely this year.
The dense, palm-sized cakes come studded with anything from lotus paste to salted egg yolk and are the ritualistic staple of the country’s Mid-Autumn Festival, which sees millions of people gifting and re-gifting boxes of the holiday staple.
In recent years, the confection has also become Public Enemy No. 1 for green groups, thanks to the mountains of elaborate packaging and plastic that are produced to gild pastry boxes and inevitably thrown away.
