What's with Food Waste Community Education in Indonesia?

Community education about food waste is the topic we chose because of the urgency and the lack of resources regarding public education about food waste, especially in Indonesia. Therefore, our research aim is to summarize all those activities so that we will find out how effective they are and add some more innovative ways to deal with them. In addition, this goal is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals to support it because our research objectives are still relatively new. Time efficiency is crucial in conducting this systematic review since we are required to arrange priority lists. Besides, time management is essential since the authors have not had any familiarity with systematic reviews. Thus, we need to consult with one of our senior authors to get the best outcome. Furthermore, this review is considered a new end product, so more effort is required to learn.

The novelty of this research challenges the authors to find qualified and reliable data as our primary source or references. Those challenges begin with the initial steps of doing a systematic review. Several of these steps are determining the research objective, identifying the gaps and how to fill them, arranging the abstract, and compiling the data extraction. These are done to explore the relevant literature and what researchers have achieved so far. It needs to be structured and become a regular task because it goes through the identification, screening, and eligibility stage which results in included journals. Writing a systematic review outline gives us the skill to think more structurally and comprehensively about food waste, especially about Indonesia's community education since many Indonesian people are less aware of food waste. This activity also increases our awareness about food waste in our daily life, so we are more responsible for choosing and processing the food we consume. Through this task, we know that systematic reviews are the potential to be the basis of reference for further research.

During the process of making a systematic review, we discuss the relevant keywords that can be used to search the literature that is related to our research objective. We utilize databases such as Google Scholar, Pubmed, Perpusnas, and Science Direct to gather all the literature supporting our systematic review by searching with the keywords we discussed previously. If there is no result for the keywords, we search for them again with their synonym. Furthermore, we do not only use keywords in English but also in Indonesian to obtain more literature. We also divide several tasks among each member to review articles and extract the obtained data from the literature, so the data extraction can be done in time. We often arrange a meeting to discuss our progress in the review. In the meeting, each member gives and shares opinions that make all the members contribute equally to the writing process of the systematic review. Apart from that, we have good teamwork because all the members back up and complete each other when there are some mistakes or errors from another member. We also have more insights on working with online tools such as databases and Zotero for writing citations and references.

Good teamwork is also needed to be implemented in reading the journals. The division of reading tasks in filtering journals and literature is carried out equally among all group members. By setting deadlines, each group member succeeds in achieving the target on schedule. After getting all the journals that we wanted to use, we continued the discussion again to re-screen the journals that had been found by mutual agreement. So if anyone has a different opinion it can be expressed in group discussions. During the discussion, it was also ensured that no one felt left behind. The relationship between group members is very strong and supports each other during the systematic review process. Of course, during the discussion process, there were several obstacles, such as time constraints due to the busyness of each group member, and revision from the supervisor. The longest time needed in making a systematic review is in this section. Nevertheless, our commitment to effective collaboration and our unwavering support for one another has enabled us to overcome these obstacles. 

Food Waste Illustration (Source: https://www.freepik.com/)

While working on the ASGs that have been done, our work is quite fast by working in groups and dividing tasks. We always have open discussions on matters relating to our group discussion, so if one of the group members needs clarification, it will always be resolved as quickly as possible. The execution of these tasks can increase the sense of trust between members. Each of them believes that each person can complete their assignments properly, follow the instructions that have been set, and contribute to these tasks. The lessons we have learned are communication and cooperation. We also support each other because, in the process of making it, we are still very new to systematic reviews and may need to understand more in making reviews and learning what essential things are required in writing. 

After completing the systematic review, each group member felt satisfied, relieved, and proud because we have completed the task properly, on time, and the revision is approved. Even during the process, there were obstacles, such as finding journals that sometimes made us tired. However, by having a sense of responsibility and involvement in the group, the work on this task must be fought for to get the expected final result. Each member is continuously motivated to provide ideas and opinions. We feel appreciated even though sometimes some find it difficult to understand every opinion of other members. Caring for fellow members is also needed because only some have the same pace in doing tasks, so everything needs to be negotiated, including deadlines and group meetings. We also increasingly understand that community education about food waste in Indonesia is quite diverse. However, the active community can still be improved, as well as the community education's target audience and the form of education most widely carried out.