Turning food waste into fertiliser

KITCHEN waste in the hospitality business often ends up in landfills.

Every day, hotels discard huge amounts of food that emit greenhouse gases and impact the earth.

Instead of throwing food waste into bins, workers at Concorde Hotel Shah Alam have been putting discarded food into a waste digester where it is turned into organic fertiliser.

Food waste such as eggshells, vegetables, fruit peels and even poultry bones sourced from its in-house Melting Pot Cafe, banquet kitchen and pantries are composted and made into organic fertiliser.

Concorde Hotel Shah Alam sales and marketing director Amilia Alias handed over 250kg of organic fertiliser to National Botanic Garden Shah Alam director Siti Zubaidah Mohamad.

The event was witnessed by Selangor youth, sports and entrepreneurship empowerment and creative economy committee chairman Mohd Najwan Halimi.

Mohd Najwan said businesses were now realising that they needed to increase sustainability in operations.

“People in the hospitality business are moving towards sustainable practices,” he said.

This was because customers were concerned with the places they patronised, and wanted these destinations to align with their personal values, he said.

Mohd Najwan added that Concorde Hotel Shah Alam’s initiative in moving towards environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts would drive the hospitality business to adopt sustainable practices.

“We hope other hotels follow suit. I was told that Concorde Hotel Shah Alam began turning food waste into organic waste in September.

“According to the National Botanic Garden Shah Alam laboratory, the waste tested qualifies as 83% organic and this is good to use as fertiliser,” he said.

Mohd Najwan urged local authorities to offer incentives to hotels in their respective areas to produce organic fertiliser as the effort was environmentally friendly and could reduce the carbon footprint.

Amilia said there were plans to provide the composted waste to small farmers as well.

“Our kitchen staff will place 50kg of food discards into the machine twice a week.

“Sometimes a little more if we have more events,” she said, adding that the hotel had so far contributed 540kg of fertiliser to National Botanic Garden Shah Alam.

Amilia said recycling helped Concorde Hotel Shah Alam save on the cost of rubbish bags as well as protect landfill space.

“We feel the initiative helps our hotel indirectly reduce our carbon footprint as none of the food waste goes to the landfill,” she said.