In this engaging episode of Intrigued to Innovate, host Dr Jovan Tan sits down with Harini Ravichandran and Felicia Tan, two NUS Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) students who are turning municipal food waste into a sustainable future.

What started as an ambitious plan to address Singapore's increasing food waste problem turned into a practical showcase of resilience, ingenuity, and hands-on problem-solving.

Facing challenges like contaminated bacterial batches weeks before their final presentation and daily exposure to food waste fumes, Harini and Felicia's journey highlights the often-overlooked, gritty side of lab-based innovation.

This episode captures their remarkable transformation of carbohydrate-rich food waste (trash) into high-value lactic acid (treasure), a key material used in bioplastics. This process not only ...