PETALING JAYA: With the intention of uplifting the lives of farmers and to prevent food wastage, a Sarawak-based social enterprise collects organic waste from hotels and restaurants to turn them into quality compost.

       Jeff Wee, the co-founder of WormingUp, said organic waste contains nutrients and should not be dumped in landfills as is the current practice.

       “I found that there are a lot of recycling centres, but none recycle organic waste.

       “So I decided to set up WormingUp in 2015 to recycle organic waste. The compost is then donated to farmers in the Padawan area.”

       Currently, Wee said they had some 200 farmers onboard with them.

       He said the organic waste was collected from hotels and restaurants, which are their partners.

       “They can produce around 0.5 tonnes of food waste a day. We started by looking around the surrounding areas for hotels and restaurants and convinced them that they can pass their food waste to us,” he said.

       Wee said it took a lot to convince people at first as they doubted his abilities due to his young age.

       “We provided the hotels and restaurants with organic waste bins and also taught their staff how to segregate the waste.

       “The bins are collected daily unlike normal solid waste.

       “We cannot leave it for a few days due to the stench that it emits,” he said, adding that once the waste arrives at the factory, it would go through secondary filtering, de-watering, shredding, as well as a fermentation process before the organic waste is fed to the worms.

       Wee said the worms were the workers in the entire process, breaking down the organic waste into compost which can be used as a natural fertiliser.

       “We collect an average of 700kg per day of organic waste from our partners and about 400kg per day during low season. The highest collection was around two tonnes a day,” he said.

       Following the Covid-19 pandemic, he said waste collection from hotels and restaurants had reduced drastically as people could not dine-in.

       Wee said they then looked to the waste produced by farmers.

       “There is also a lot of wastage coming from farmers as they can only harvest the middle part of leafy vegetables.

       “Fruits like bananas are thrown away if they are not the right size and texture to meet the market requirements,” he said.

       Wee said reducing food wastage from farmers was also one of their targets.

       “For farmers who do not have money, we provide them with fertilisers for free so that they are able to produce crops that meet market standards,” he said.

       Wee also said they have come a long way where they now even collect organic waste for the city council.

       Armed with a 10-year plan, Wee shared that the group intends to change the way the food supply chain system worked by cutting out the middleman.

       “Currently, in Kuching a lot of food wastage occurs due to the inefficient logistics in the food supply chain.

       “A farmer who harvests his crops has to sell it to a middleman. From there, the middleman passes them on to another.

       “The second middleman will then sell the items to wholesalers or retailers before reaching the end user,” he said.

       Due to this, a lot of waste is produced during the transportation and grading process.

       “We intend to shorten the supply chain by collecting the crops straight from the farmers to the retailers,” Wee said, adding that they also want to establish their own retail store to help farmers sell their products and reduce the waste produced throughout the supply chain.

       Wee, who has had a passion for environmental conservation since his university days, said the group was honoured to have been selected as an award recipient this year.

       For its noble efforts, WormingUp is recognised as one of the 10 winners of Star Golden Hearts Award 2021, an annual award that celebrates everyday Malaysian unsung heroes.