UNAIR NEWS – Universitas Airlangga’s (UNAIR) commitment to be a green campus is shown by managing organic waste to be compost fertilizer. It was realized through the building of the Compost House at UNAIR MERR (C) Campus.
The UNAIR Compost House was officially inaugurated on Tuesday, June 07, 2022, by the Director of Logistics, Security, Order, and Environment (LKKL) UNAIR, Dr Karnaji SSos MSi. During the event, Karnaji revealed that UNAIR Compost House was built to help plant fertilization in the campus environment.
“We don’t want to throw organic waste just like that, but we want to utilize it to be a more useful product,” he stated.
Furthermore, Karnaji mentioned that UNAIR Compost House could maximize organic waste utilization and support the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) point 13 about climate change management and impact.
“Compost fertilizer could reduce greenhouse gas emission, which impacted climate change,” he explained.
Encourage student participation
Karnaji also hoped that students could participate in improving UNAIR Compost House. The participation could be in the form of research and studies regarding innovation in organic waste management, especially for students in the Environment Study Group (KSL) Faculty of Science and Technology (FST) UNAIR.
“The main goal of this Compost House is to be an educational medium. Students could do a field study, finding thesis material and PKM (student creativity programs, ed) here,” said the Sociology lecturer of FISIP UNAIR.
Karnaji emphasized that UNAIR Compost House could be used as much as possible. Besides fertilizer supply, students could develop ideas in fertilizer production.
“Such as how to improve nutrition in fertilizer, and creating fertilizer that could accelerate plant’s growth. Hopefully, there are more innovations that could benefit the community,” he continued.
Organic fertilizer production
Furthermore, the Person in Charge of UNAIR Compost House, Ilham Meizar ST, stated the advantage of the compost house, that produced fertilizer is 100 percent organic. “There are worms in the compost that are usually not found here. It means that our compost managed to rot well and could be used to fertilize plants,” he explained.
UNAIR Compost House, located behind the Joint Lecture Building (GKB), could take up 3-4 tonnes of organic waste. Until today, UNAIR Compost House has produced 1.95 tonnes of fertilizer compost that have been distributed to plants at UNAIR.
“So far we have distributed the fertilizer to be utilized independently. Hopefully, in the future we could produce more so that it could help fertilizer stock in Surabaya,” said Ilham. (*)
Author: Thara Bening
Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh
