Health footwear in form of reflexology sandals is quite common to find in Indonesia. It is also possible to find reflexology shoes in the market. Nifta Noor Halimah, Nurul Wulan Sari and Evania Dian Widyastuti from educational technology study program, Alfi Meilan Khasanah from economic education study program and Hasna Ulfah Edwina from Biology study program have the idea to make health shoes from Salak waste. Most of manufacturers of Salak products only use the fruit. Any unused seeds and skin are discarded free of charge and have no use value.
‘”The waste can be empowered as a business opportunity, one of which is a therapy bed and accessories for shoes," Nifta said. Nurul added that salak waste consisting of zalacca shells and zalacca seeds can be produced into acupuncture shoes that are worth selling. In addition to having benefits in adding to the health of its users, these shoes are also very fashionable for use among teenagers because they are uniquely modified with the typical texture of the surface of bark.
"The stage of making shoes starts from making foot size prints and body shoe prints and then unites between shoe soles, shoe bodies which are then added to footwear that has been given salak seeds for reflexology," Hasna said.
Good quality seeds were soaked using alcohol for 20 minutes then drained using an oven with a temperature of 50 ° C for 2 days and continued with the painting process with varnish so that the salak seeds will shine more.
For salak skin color, different salak species will give different coloring. Salak Pondoh skin naturally will be dark brown. To get lighter color, Salak Gading will be the option for brownish yellow color tone. Any salak skin must be dried first before flatten method is done. Flatten salak skin application can be combined with other various material.
This work succeeded in gaining Dikti funding in the Student Creativity Program in Entrepreneurship in 2019. (Dedy)
