From Trash to Treasure: How Two Women Engineers are Redefining Waste into Sustainable Innovation (feat. Harini Ravichandran and Felicia Tan)

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 helps reduce environmental impact but also opens up new economic opportunities.This episode uncovers:· Why Singapore's food waste problem demands urgent, circular solutions· How to turn procurement nightmares and contaminated samples—things that go wrong—into learning opportunities· The power of interdisciplinary collaboration across chemical engineering, materials science, and environmental engineering· Why soft skills—such as time management, stress coping, and strategic pitching—are more important than technical perfection· How focusing on problems you care about sustains you through a year-long innovation challengeWhether you're a student engineer, sustainability advocate, or simply curious about turning environmental challenges into valuable resources, understand why the greatest innovations emerge not from perfect execution, but from embracing every setback as a stepping stone.Guests: Harini Ravichandran and Felicia Tan Mei Ling, Y3 Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) Students, National University of SingaporeHosted by: Dr Jovan TanProduced by: Low Tse Han & Dr Jovan TanPresented by: NUS Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) at the NUS Engineering Design and Innovation Centre (EDIC)