| Wen Shin Chia | |||||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | ||||||||||||
| Alma Mater: | Universiti Putra Malaysia | ||||||||||||
| Awards: | Queen's Young Leader Award (2018) Bayer Malaysia Young Environmental Envoy Award (2013) | ||||||||||||
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Wen Shin Chia (born) is a Malaysian environmentalist and entrepreneur.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Chia was born in Kuala Lumpur and raised in Selengor, Malaysia. She is the youngest among two siblings. Her mother died when she was 15 years old.[6]
Chia attended SMK Kepong.
Chia earned a bachelor's degree in Environmental Science and Technology from Universiti Putra Malaysia. She decided to take it after noticing the increasing pollution in camping and hiking sites she used to frequent to.[7] [8] [9] At her third year, Chia conducted a survey and found out that 90 percent of Malaysian households are oblivious on how to properly dispose cooking oil — a majority admitted to dumping it into sinks, drains and toilet bowls. Hence, Chia's university project was a community-based initiative in recycling cooking oils to soaps.[10]
Chia worked as a product development executive at an agri-chemical company for a few months before establishing Green Yards.[11]
Green Yards is a social enterprise that recycles cooking oil to eco-friendly products and aims to reduce water pollution in Malaysia in return. Green Yards collects used oil from households, restaurants and markets. They give free soap per 5 kg of oil.[12] In its first year, Green Yards was able to prevent 4.7 tonnes of cooking oil from being dumped.
Green Yards also conducts recycling workshops.