Sumita's Story

What got me started?

I’ve always been interested in nature and the environment since young, and have always wanted to do my part for the environment, but  I didn’t know how to get started.

It was only when I was researching on  healthier plant-based diets for my family that I learnt how healthy and nutritious food is being  thrown away every day. To me, it seems silly and a waste of money to be throwing away food that’s still perfectly edible, just because they were bruised or discoloured.

When we throw away food, we are also wasting precious natural resources - water and energy, that’s been invested into growing the produce that eventually gets served up on our tables. Resources are finite, especially so in Singapore, where we have limited space to build incineration plants or landfills to dispose of food waste.

What was your first project?

I started reading up on healthier diets when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Through my research, I learnt that, a lot of nutritious food was being thrown away due to cosmetic filtering.

Hence, I collect these “ugly” and blemished food that would otherwise be disposed of from fruits and vegetable suppliers and improvise new recipes with them.

What’s next?

I hope to see more people in my community take small steps where they can, to adopt a greener lifestyle. Generally, I feel that Singaporeans do want to adopt more eco-friendly habits, but are unaware of how to get started, and may feel left out if people around them do not support their efforts . The first step is to overcome the inertia of being the “first person to make the change” and start practising simple habits to reduce food waste such as ordering only what we can finish or asking for less where necessary.

The next step is to spread the awareness on what are the small steps each of us can take as individuals and how these small steps can impact the environment in big ways.

If each of us can influence just one person, that would be a great start.
I’ve chosen to do what’s good for me and the environment.

You can too.