By Kooi Xiu Min (English Literature + NUSC ’26)
“Why is this not already implemented?”
This question was posed to Verlyn Ku (Biomedical Engineering + NUSC [USP] ’24) after a presentation during a former University Scholars Programme (USP) course, Leadership in a Complex World. She had just completed her pitch on a simple way to reduce waste and that was the encouragement she needed to make her pitch a reality.
“I came back to school one weekend after moveout day. I saw the amount of perfectly good waste and I was utterly appalled,” quipped Verlyn. This eyesore made her think, what if these items could be given a second life and re-used by fellow students? Enter InfiniUse, Verlyn’s ground-up initiative (GUI) with the simple goal of “just to save stuff”. InfiniUse enabled students to donate their unwanted items at the end of the semester, which were then sorted, stored, and resold for a minimal fee instead of being wasted.
As the leader of this campus sustainability project, Verlyn was named a Youth for Environmental Sustainability (YES) Leader in the National Environmental Agency’s (NEA) inaugural run of the programme last year. As a YES Leader, she was given the opportunity to participate in a range of modules on environmental sustainability while also embarking on learning journeys to sites like our landfill at Pulau Semakau together with other youth leaders. “I felt I got a broader-based understanding of the issues that are under NEA’s purview (including) energy, district cooling plants, climate studies,” she said.
Armed with this information, Verlyn felt she could make better choices informed by science while strengthening her cause for environmental issues. “More information does make you a better environmentalist!”
When InfiniUse started out, Verlyn’s manpower came mostly from her friends’ volunteering. Coming from different social circles between degree-bearing faculty, NUSC, and church, she was heartened by their ready involvement in taking on various roles within the project, which included sorting, organising, cleaning, recording, and moving donated items. Additionally, Verlyn connected with students in the larger NUS community from Student’s Association for Visions of the Earth (SAVE). Like her, the students from NUS SAVE were passionate about the issue of residential waste.
“In fact, they wanted to do something similar, and they were so excited that I’ve managed to seek approval and start it!” she shared.
During its first run last summer, the scope of the project was limited to Cinnamon College, and donated items were stored in the dungeon and Theme Room Blue’s cupboards. By its second run in the recent winter break, in collaboration with NUS SAVE, the programme managed to expand its scope to most of the University’s residences. “A huge upscale in size, if you’d ask me,” Verlyn remarked.
InfiniUse’s current core team of six comprises students including members from NUS SAVE. For operations to run smoothly, Verlyn believes in both the importance of diverse skill-sets within her team, and a willingness to step out of their comfort zones and learn. On her end, she does and tries just about “anything and everything”, which honed her skills in liaison, publicity, and management. This is proving to be particularly helpful in tackling InfiniUse’s biggest challenge, which is volunteer recruitment.
“Our donation points were full within two to three days, so one of us needed to go down once in a while and move all the stuff to our storage room,” Verlyn recalled. Faced with piles of discarded items, the team almost had no space to store them all and moving bulky items from donation point to storage room itself was exhausting. Still, what gave the team the motivation to persevere was their passion for reducing waste.
“To me, every donated item resold is a piece of item saved from the landfill,” Verlyn said. Seeing other students that cared about reducing waste was also a boost to her morale.
Now in her final semester, Verlyn is proud of how far the initiative has come and believes that InfiniUse will be in the good hands of her juniors. Though the team is looking at ways to reduce manpower required, like engaging donors’ help in sorting, the overwhelming reception from last winter’s run suggests nevertheless that many hands will make light work.
Noting her own growth learning on-the-job, Verlyn encourages those looking to start their own initiatives to take that first step. “Be courageous! Just try something and then you’ll realise and learn things along the way,” she said.
“Sometimes, the simplest solution is worth exploring and doing.”
