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Food waste: Once discarded, now source of income

Food waste: Once discarded, now source of income

Tuesday, 08/03/2022

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Malaysians throw away an average of 16,000 tons of food waste daily, and this huge figure is negatively impacting the climate and contributing to global warming.

However, systematic management of this food waste will not only reduce pollution, but it will also create additional incomes, especially for housewives.

A project on food waste by UMT researchers has successfully produced entrepreneurs among housewives.

Prof. Dr. Fadzilah Adibah Abdul Majid, head of the project, called Knowledge Transfer Programme with Raub Community, said that food waste needs to be managed well as it can benefit housewives.

“Food waste, whether in dry or wet forms, originates from the kitchen. Now they can use this food waste as a means to gain additional income,” she said.

The programme was also intended to train representatives from the surrounding communities to become green ambassadors of GHEART (Green Herbal Ambassador Technoagroprenuer Programme).

“Representatives attending the programme were those from several schools in Raub, including Sek. Kebangsaan Chenua and Sek. Men. Kebangsaan Tengku Kudin, and from Taman Simpang Kalang, Taman Amalina Perdana, and Kampung Melayu Sempalit,” Professor Fadzillah said.

“They were trained how to process food waste to become compost fertilizer, which will be used to produce pesticide-free herbal plants.”

She said that participants completed several modules on local herbs for health and food, where they learned about the process of creating compost fertilizer from food waste, herb cultivation, income generation methods, and processing of herbs using green technology.

The programme was also intended to create awareness of the importance of herbs for health.

According to Prof. Fadzilah, creating compost fertilizer, which has many uses, is easy and does not require extra cost.

“Food waste is stored for a specific time and then mixed with soil and rice husk to create compost fertilizer that can be used on herbal plants around the house, such as lemongrass, mint, kaduk, betel, turmeric, galangal, ginger, chilli, cilantro, and pegaga,” she said.

 

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Universiti Malaysia Terengganu