UNS – Two achievements in the form of a Gold Medal and Special Award from Sri Lanka won by three students of Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta in the “2nd World Invention and Technology Expo (WINTEX)”, Saturday (10/12/2019) in Jakarta. Ruby Agil Hasan from Agropharmacy class of 2017, Muh. Taufiek Heryansyah and Panji Karuniatama Putra from Horticulture class of 2018, students of vocational program of Agribusiness Department, came with “Optimizing the Potential of Tea Pulp, Vegetable Market Waste, and Livestock Manure as Liquid Organic Fertilizer at Kemuning Village, Karanganyar”.
Taufiek, one of the team members, explained that the abundant tea pulp waste in Kemuning Village, the Karanganyar’s major producer of tea, was the background of the innovation.
“In addition, the livelihoods of the people are also animal farmers of goats and cows with livestock dungs. No less potential, there is Kemuning traditional market where many littered or rotten vegetables become waste,” said Taufiek.
The preparatory stage begins with product registration in WINTEX to be curated and declared to qualify. Then, in the product manufacturing stage, the team succeeded after two attempts. In the first experiment, fertilizer production failed because the water bottle used was too small.
“Because it is narrow and small, the bottle stiffened and it was full of gas. All the fertilizer was spilled. Finally, we used more materials and tools in the second experiment. The bottle was also bigger. After a week, the product was successful and we packed it in a 500-ml-capacity white bottle,” he added.
This team named its product as “Tealof Wilavette (Tea Waste as Liquid Organic Fertilizer with Livestock Manure and Vegetable Market Waste)”.
In advance, they hope that the product can be marketed. However, the team will scrutinize more about the price so that it can be reached by farmers and the market strategy in order to compete with the market competitors.
“We hope that this product will be copyrighted by UNS. During the competition, we were supervised and supported by the Head of Agribusiness Department, Mr. Raden Kunto Adi, S.P., M.P., as well as the admins of the department and UNS Vocational School,” he stated.
He followed that WINTEX was an international competition of product exhibitions organized by Indonesian Invention and Innovation Promotion Association (INNOPA). The participants must compete with other public and private universities from various countries around the world. Humas UNS/Kaffa/Try