Development of Food Waste Management Guidelines in Harmonizing and Sustaining the Ecosystem of the UUM Lake Restaurant (S/O 14247)

• Main Authors: Yean, Tan Fee, Johari, Johanim, Hassan, Zuraida, Alias, Nursiha, Abdullah, Nor Azimah Chew, Abdul Rahman, Hazlan
• Format: Monograph
• Language: English
• Published: UUM 2021
• Subjects: GE Environmental Sciences
• Online Access: https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/31504/1/14247.pdf; https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/31504/
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

Operating an environment-friendly lake restaurant is a great challenge for UUM. Food waste will be generated on a daily basis due to the day-to-day operation of the restaurant. Inefficient or irresponsible waste disposal management in the restaurant have potentially jeopardized the surrounding ecosystems. That makes good food waste management essential. Therefore, this study sought to identify intervention measures that could cause food waste management more efficient in terms of waste minimization and disposal. Data on 14 restaurants located nearby the seaside, riverside, lakeside, and paddy field within Kedah state found that not all the restaurants having adequate and efficient ways in managing food waste and therefore offer an excellent opportunity for improvement. The majority of the restaurants currently lack sufficient insight into how much, why, and how food waste is reduced, reused, and recycled from the food supply chain. This makes them challenging to prioritize actions in food waste management. This study addresses this issue by developing food waste management guidelines that prioritize 4Rs (Rethink, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) strategies that restaurants can use to prevent and divert wasted food. That, in turn, not only helps in reducing the volume and the cost of disposal, but also helps reduce pollution, save natural resources, and move towards becoming an environmentally friendly restaurant