Universitas Brawijaya PKM-PM Team Processes Broken Milk and Cocoa Waste into Hand Washing Soap

One of the behaviors to maintain cleanliness and healthy living that needs to be implemented to prevent transmission of the Covid-19 virus is the habit of washing hands with soap. This is because handwashing with soap (CTPS) is one of the output indicators of the national community-based total sanitation strategy.

The target locations that require special attention for environmental hygiene and health are Islamic boarding schools, considering that there are hundreds of students in the pesantren.

Seeing this reality, Universitas Brawijaya (UB) students with the lecture Dr. Dedes Amertaningtyas, S.Pt.,M.P provide training on processing handwashing soap made from broken milk and cocoa waste to the students at Anwarul Huda Islamic Boarding School (PPAH) Malang.

They consist of Eko Prihatmaji (Faculty of Animal Science / 2019), Firmansyah Budi Pratama (Faculty of Animal Science / 2019), Muhammad Izzul Atfhal (Faculty of Animal Science / 2019), Chosiatun Nafingah (Faculty of Medicine / 2019), and Silvia Maulita (Faculty of Medicine / 2020).

The team received funding in the 2021 Student Creativity Program for Community Service (PKM-PM) from the Republic of Indonesia’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology.

The training program for processing broken milk and cocoa shell waste as hand soap aims to increase the productivity of students and provide education on the importance of environmental hygiene in Islamic boarding schools. The series of activities carried out were exposure to ecological hygiene and health materials, training on cocoa peel extraction and making hand soap, packaging design training, and entrepreneurship training.

According to the team leader, Eko Prihatmaji, broken milk is part of the production of dairy cows that the KUD does not accept. This is because broken milk is considered not standard quality like whole milk, so it is deemed to be unfit for consumption. Broken milk was obtained from cattle breeders in the Ngantang area, Malang Regency. Meanwhile, cocoa waste in the form of skins was obtained from the cocoa plantation area in Dampit, Malang Regency.

“The use of crushed milk and cocoa rind as additional ingredients in hand soap is utilizing waste that is no longer used. In addition, both ingredients contain anti-bacterial compounds to ward off bacteria that enter the skin and compounds that can soften and soothe the skin,” explained Eko

Then the next step of this program in the second year is to provide assistance to make PPAH students have soap products that can be used as business opportunities. (team/dta)