DIVERTING FOOD WASTE

At Marina Bay Sands, technology is scaled up to make big sustainability gains

At a buffet with the best spreads, where guests can eat all they want, it is easy for a restaurant to produce too much food. Besides the wastage, disposing of uneaten food adds stress to landfills.

For a property as large as Marina Bay Sands, it is not hard to imagine the excess that can come with providing the luxury that guests expect. Yet, with the scale it operates at, the integrated resort has also found new ways to grow its sustainability efforts.

Today, AI is used to gauge how much to cook for the buffet table, reducing excess. Food waste is valorised and transformed into fish feed. The big idea is not just cutting-edge innovation but using it at scale to make a difference.

Innovation to scale up impact

Each day, Marina Bay Sands processes and diverts food waste across the property, including its restaurants and banquets. In 2024, the resort diverted 65 per cent of its food waste, and cumulatively since 2013, it has diverted close to 10 million kilograms of food waste from landfills by adopting best practices, deploying innovative technologies and donating surplus food to charity partners.

The new food waste processing technology, called WasteMaster, plays a part. It transforms food waste into an odour-free, high-calorific substrate that can be used for fish feed by a local aquaponics farm. In turn, the fish waste fertilises vegetables, enabling a truly circular economy.

Each day, the machines at Marina Bay Sands’ kitchens process between 600kg and 800kg of food waste. From here, their weight gets reduced by up to 80 per cent, thanks to the WasteMaster’s innovative technology that accelerates decomposition, making the final product easier to transport.

When the integrated resort trialled this system in 2022, it was the first time the machine was used in Singapore’s hospitality industry. Today, six machines work hard on property.

These aren’t off-the-shelf solutions, explains Meridith Beaujean, Marina Bay Sands’ Executive Director of Sustainability, because they must be customised to scale up with operations.

“Given the sheer volume we manage daily, technology is an essential partner in our food waste management efforts, including how food waste is transformed into valorised output,” she notes.

Finding a customised solution

Sustainability has been at the heart of Marina Bay Sands’ operations since opening in 2010. Even before the introduction of the latest WasteMaster machines, it had set up five aerobic food digesters that broke down food into non-potable water.

The continual enhancements at Marina Bay Sands are testament to its unwavering commitment to innovation and excellence. These upgrades embody the resort’s vision of delivering “luxury with purpose” - an exceptional guest experience that is aligned with ambitious sustainability goals.

Take its AI-powered food waste tracking system, which is deployed at the resort’s buffet restaurant RISE and two staff Dining Rooms that collectively serve up to 17,000 meals daily. By monitoring the type and weight of discarded food in real-time, the system empowers chefs to fine-tune portions and prepare just the right amount, minimising waste without compromising on quality. This seamless integration of this technology into daily workflows since 2022 exemplifies how Marina Bay Sands has been redefining sustainability at scale.

In 2023, a mobile version of the system was set up as well. This is now moved around the Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Centre to accurately measure the food waste footprint of large-scale events.

Key to the system’s success, says Beaujean, was adapting it to operations, for example by collecting enough data of the type of food waste and making sure the AI is trained to correctly identify each type of food and ingredients.

Not just satisfied with a small win, she stresses that each effort should make a big difference. “Everything we do, we expect to scale up.”

Never a bad idea

One might assume that operating at a larger scale often comes with greater risk. However, for Marina Bay Sands, scale is met with strategy. Many of the technologies tailored for its sustainability initiatives undergo rigorous trials, sometimes spanning months or even years before full implementation.

“These proofs of concept allow us to refine the technologies, address operational challenges, and most importantly engage our team members,” explains Beaujean. “It is an opportunity for them to provide feedback, receive training, and become active participants in our journey.”

Since she joined Sands China Limited - Marina Bay Sands’ sister company - 20 years ago, Beaujean has seen how technology enables efforts to grow and scale.

Yet, the importance of a culture of innovation is not lost on her. It is one reason why she is optimistic about Marina Bay Sands making a difference in Singapore, even as environmental challenges continue to grow for the planet.

Regularly, she attends startup accelerator programmes to find new ideas and meet with potential collaborators from Singapore. A great idea can be scaled up in Marina Bay Sands to make a big difference.

One such solution is another smart waste tracking system that adopts a data-driven approach. It leverages AI and analytics to capture, track, visualise and manage waste and recyclables at the bin centre. Today, this provides a quick yet full report of the amount of material that Marina Bay Sands helps to recycle and identify opportunities.

It is this belief in constant improvement and a curiosity in new ways of doing things that drive her and her team in their mission.

“You’ll never be told it’s not a good idea if you present a concept,” she says of the innovation culture at Marina Bay Sands. “There is a lot of encouragement to find a solution, to speak about it, and to think out of the box.”