KUCHING: Batu Kitang State Assemblyman Lo Khere Chiang was impressed with Jeff Wee, the founder of Worming Up, a social enterprise set up in Kuching aiming to reduce food waste which normally ends up at landfill sites.
Lo who went with Wee to the 3rd Mile, Sg. Maong Wet Market yesterday morning applauded Wee for coming up with such a noble idea. Wee has approached Padawan Municipal Council (MPP) of which Lo is Chairman, to assist them with the waste woes in Padawan area.
MPP provides the bins in the wet market area so that Worming Up can collect the leftovers at the end of the day for recycling.
“MPP has always been looking for ways to lessen our impact on the environment, ensuring that we recycle as much as we can, and waste as little as we can,” said Lo.
He added that not only uncooked food should be recycled but people should also look at the cooked food not only in restaurants but at home too.
“We, in Sarawak these days are a fortunate lot. In the old days, children were educated by their parents not to waste any food, not even a grain of rice. There is a saying, a grain of rice comes from two sweats of a farmer. And we have to think of the homeless even in our country and some third world countries where there are many who barely could have a meal in a week. So we must cook or order what we need and learn not to waste,” he said.
The MPP chief was also impressed that Worming Up was set up a group of young
people who care so much for the environment. The younger generation should learn to emulate such practice to make the world a better one as ‘Earth’ belongs to everyone and we should not kill it with pollution for the future generations.
Worming Up is a social enterprise that aims to reduce food waste ended up at landfill sites. It tries to prevent food waste accumulated at landfill sites which produce methane gas and toxic leachate that can
cause several environmental problems. Food waste represents a recyclable nutrient source which should not be wasted by dumping it at landfill. Hence, the enterprise provides food waste management service to the existing food and beverage companies by collecting the food waste they generated.
Worming Up has created programmes and campaigns to raise awareness of food waste in Malaysia, educating the public on what can be done to reduce its impact on the environment.
Food Waste Management Awareness Campaigns are organised and held in shopping malls throughout Kuching, namely at City One, Green Heights Mall, Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK), Riverside Shopping Complex, Eastern Mall, Summer Shopping Mall, Sarawak Plaza and Kuching Sentral.
Food Waste Awareness Talks involve the Worming Up team visiting schools, companies and events to raise awareness of food waste management, including Popular, Youth Speak Forum, Riverside Talk, X-FAB and Sup4Good.
Educational Workshops are focused on educating the younger generation on the importance of waste segregation, instilling good habits to benefit the future generations. These workshops are hands on, and have been held at SMK Gapor Stampin, SMK Kuching High and Popular Mega Book fair, encouraging students to make their own soap using upcycled used oil.
Worming Up also collaborates with companies to reduce wastage during their events, such as: UNIMAS Convocation Festival (Confest) 2016, with 576kg of food waste collected, Rainforest Music Festival, with 386kg of food waste collected, TedxYouth@Kenyalang, with 18kg of food waste collected.
Projects have been started, such as Weekend Farmer, where volunteers experience farm work, and their products are sent to the Kuching urban poor, and babycorn planting project where the babycorn planted was donated to Society for Kuching Urban Poor (SKUP).
So far, Worming UP has upcycled up to 60,000kg of organic waste,126.5 litres of used oil which was converted in to eco-friendly soap which reached 3457 individuals, received assistance from 75 volunteers and provided 200 meals to Kuching Urban poor.
