Unsri Community Service Program Students Teach Local Residents How to Turn Organic Waste into Compost

Sriwijaya University (Unsri) conducted a community service program with students participating in the Community Service Program (KKN) in Pagar Dewa Village, Jarai Subdistrict, Lahat Regency, to increase community productivity and income through organic waste processing.

In addition to providing information on how to process waste into marketable products, the Unsri academic community also conducted training on cost accounting to determine the selling price of diversified agricultural products. 

Through this, residents gained two key insights: the product manufacturing process and how to determine future selling prices.

A member of the community service team who is also an Unsri lecturer, Parama Santati (42), explained that the goal of introducing this program is to enable residents to produce their own organic fertilizer or compost from household waste as well as vegetable and rice harvest residues.

“So, it is hoped that the community will understand the importance of protecting the surrounding environment by processing organic waste independently,” she said on Tuesday, August 23, 2022.

If this waste is left untreated, she continued, it can have negative impacts on the environment, such as causing pollution and the spread of disease.

“Therefore, to address this, measures such as processing it into solid organic fertilizer are needed so that it can be put to better use,” explained Parama.

Meanwhile, Jarai Subdistrict Head Reyno Delfansyah explained that this is a great initiative, starting in the village of Pagar Dewa.

“With this program, we will strive to expand and encourage all villages in Jarai Subdistrict to implement the same approach, so that this waste problem can be reduced,” he concluded. 

In this first phase of the Community Service activity, there were three Unsri lecturers—Prof. Dr. Sulastri, M.E., M.Komp., as Team Leader; Parama Santati, S.E., M.Kom.; and Yulia Hamdaini, S.E., M.Si.—along with six students from the Unsri Faculty of Economics.