Willie (second left) with Global Cerah Sdn Bhd chairman George Ng (second right), project manager Latif Buyong (left), and project team manager Wan Nurhaziera Wan Makhtar.
KOTA KINABALU (Dec 1): Global Cerah Sdn Bhd, a Sabah-based start-up, has been making waves internationally with its state-of-the-art waste management system.
The agri-tech start-up integrates waste management of agricultural wastes and the production of alternative protein sources into a solution that can sustain the future of the food ecosystem.
“We address problems such as the massive amount of harmful agriculture waste, the usage of inorganic fertilisers, and inefficient waste management.
“Our solution in our integrated systems is to manage waste management, provide proper treatment and ensure a sustainable future,” said chief executive officer Willie Ng.
“Firstly, we collect the wastes from farmers and restaurants and input them into the waste treatment machinery for processing before passing to the feeding process where the black soldier flies (BSF) larvae will feed on those processed materials.
“After that, those larvae reach a maturity stage which consists sufficient protein as feed meals and then dried up during the production system before being sent to feed meals producers or farmers,” he explained.
In the end, Willie said that this solution will recycle waste into the food ecosystem.
Global Cerah has won several awards for its cutting-edge solution, namely the first prize in the 4th China-ASEAN New Smart City Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition ASEAN Division; winner of the 2021 Junior Chamber International (JCI) Asia-Pacific Regional Creative Young Entrepreneurs (CYE) Competition; top three of 2021 JCI World Congress Creative Young Entrepreneurs (CYE) Competition; and winner of 2021 Alibaba Cloud Malaysia Demo Day.
It was also the first Sabahan start-up to officially join the 2021 Malaysia Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) Virtual Global Accelerator Programme Cohort 05 and 2021 MaGIC Agritech Bootcamp.
Willie said that the conventional method of disposing agricultural waste using the landfill method is costly and harmful.
“In Sabah, they would usually choose the landfill method. This is costly. All this waste has acidic elements that could be harmful to the soil.
“In the long term, the soil would lose nutrition. It will cease to be useful for crops and farming. This is something that we want to resolve,” he said, adding that the conventional method may also lead to land pollution.
He also pointed out the larvae provided by his company are high in protein and healthy, therefore making them suitable for livestock and fertilisers.
It is understood that Global Cerah’s products have even reached the UK, US, and Germany.
Willie went on to explain that Global Cerah’s machines are fully automated, unlike the other conventional waste management systems, which would often involve a lot of workers.
“These workers are also exposed to dangers such as air pollution since they have to be on-site for the entire day.
“We, on the other hand, are fully automated and we use software, which means lesser people are involved,” he said.