What a genius idea!
Have you ever walked past an unattended leftover buffet and thought of grabbing some free nosh for lunch? I have. And I didn’t just think of it, I did it. Once. Sneaking mouthfuls of bee hoon noodles straight from the cold platter with a sporting friend in school, we were on high alert for any passers-by to catch us in this act of shamelessness.
Since then, I’ve discovered a Telegram group that notifies its members of unfinished buffets around the campus of National University of Singapore (NUS), giving everyone a guilt-free licence to dine free-of-charge. Labelled as the NUS Buffet Response Team, this initiative was founded by two fourth year NUS students, Elaine Sam Hui Xian, 25, and Gracie Low Yi Lei, 23.
“We are course mates of the same batch from the Bachelor of Environmental Studies, and also CCA mates at NUS Students Against Violation of the Earth (SAVE). So that’s how we got to know each other and became friends,” Gracie shared.
Open to anyone in NUS, this isn’t just a money-saving venture that helps ease the cost of being a university student. It has a larger purpose in combating food waste, a pertinent issue in Singapore, where about 140kg of food per person was wasted in 2014, according to the National Environment Agency.
All you need is an account on Telegram to join the group via this link, and wait for notifications from various event organisers of leftover buffet food just waiting to be wiped clean. Posts usually come in the format of a picture, the venue, and the ending time of the buffet. Otherwise indicated, all meals are halal.
Having noticed the abundance of events with within the NUS campus, the eco-conscious pair came up with this mutual idea. “Being activists in our own right and recognising the problem of food waste, we find that this is an easily achievable action that one can immediately take,” said Elaine.
The group, currently with more than 2,300 members, relies on word of mouth and the invitation of existing participants to expand the Telegram community. “A purely student-run, informal initiative”, it began as a Facebook page in October 2015. Gracie said, “We sent emails in our independent capacities to the school’s faculty key contacts and clubs and societies as they would be the key groups of people who organise events.”
A Combined Effort
“Together with the NUS community, we managed to crowd-source and link 11 buffet events over the course of the last year. At least 30 trays of food were saved and we were featured on NUS Student Life Fair. However, we know there are catered events that we weren’t able to reach out to.”
She continued, “This February, we decided to improve the process of engaging the students, as well as getting more event organisers on board, through a more instantaneous platform – Telegram, which can hold a community of up to 5,000 people. Hence, the Telegram community was born on 14 February 2017. As of 10 April 2017, the Telegram community has managed to crowd-source and link 48 buffet events.”
Considering the rapid growth of the group, Elaine and Gracie are expecting to accommodate beyond the 5,000 member limit with a Telegram bot, a third-party application within the messenger. Elaine explained, “A bot is preferred over a group chat to increase privacy between users, improve automation, and allow for a more organic process that can accommodate a large population.”
At the end of the day, as Gracie said, “What we hope to achieve out of this initiative is very simple – reducing food waste by redirecting.” And it doesn’t hurt that we get free food from time to time either!
