Chew Keng Onn (SDE), Fung Si Qi (FASS), Joy Keren Lee Ern (FoS), Tay Yu Teng (FoS), Yany Chan Ziqi (SDE)
Academic Advisor: Dr. Chua Siew Chin
Food waste in Singapore has been steadily increasing. Food spoilage from excessive groceries contributes in part to the food waste problem. In RVRC, we observe that the communal refrigerators are often packed with expired food, leading to food wastage. Expired food remains in the refrigerator long past their expiry dates. The likely reasons for these expired food include owners forgetting about the products and their expiry dates, or being irresponsible in clearing the products. The excessive and spoiled food compromises the hygiene of the communal refrigerators and takes up shared space. We aim to create a system to change the wasteful behavior of the residents. Our goal is for fridge users to take more ownership of their purchased groceries. We proposed a reminder scheme for individuals to monitor their products and a food labeling system to instill responsibilities among users. We will conduct surveys to gather a general consensus about food waste and feedback on our proposed system from common fridge users. Subsequently, we will be monitoring selected fridges across RVRC to create an inventory and categorize expiring or expired food products. We hope to better understand the issue of food wastage and hence create a solution to unnecessary food wastage, starting from the fridges of RVRC.
Keywords: Waste Management, food waste, refrigerator, Cultural and Lifestyle Trends