During my university exchange in France, lunch was served in cafeterias and it was the norm to return our cutleries to the return point after eating. One could easily see the numerous plates with half-eaten loaves of bread along with other wasted food.
After coming back to Singapore and prototyping a weighing scale to reduce food waste (maybe I’ll write this in another article in future), CHIJ St Theresa approached us, looking to test out our solution in their canteen. I thought why not this would be a good chance to put what I learned into practice.
Although the weighing scale idea was not implemented, I remembered the idea of the transparent bin and thought if we could try that instead. Yu-min, the contact person from the school, helped us find funding and eventually the bin was built.
We deployed the bin for one week in the canteen and results were fantastic. Just by observation, food waste levels had dropped roughly by half! We think that the visibility of food waste, especially at such high levels, sent a really strong message that everyone has a part to play to reduce our food waste.
One issue though, was that the bin was over-sized and hard to handle. We should have consulted with the cleaning uncle for his advice as well before building the bin.
For anyone who wants to implement and improve the concept, attached are the files to the transparent bin. Hopefully an idea like this goes viral and we see this implemented everywhere, with everyone constantly reminded to do what is easily feasible for the environment.
