Creating a splash of color from kitchen waste

[Photo/CGTN]

Their office is actually a small laboratory. Sometimes, they spend a whole day boiling or "cooking", adding sugar, vinegar, and salt among other ingredients.

In doing so, an orange peel can be turned into orange dye and a rotten pineapple might be turned into a beautiful yellow color.

At the beginning, Eric and Winnie were always laughed at by local vegetable vendors when they asked for their waste. But when the sellers saw the results of their upcycling, they became more supportive.

Over the past five years, Dyelicious has turned more than six tons of food waste into dyes for dresses, scarves and handicrafts, turning the old saying of "one man's trash is another man's treasure" into a reality.

Hong Kong disposes of a staggering 15,000 tons of solid trash every day and over one third of that is food waste.

Turning the food into dye is a small step in alleviating food waste woes, but it's at least a beginning.