Going circular: one regional community's drive to create a circular economy | Landline | ABC News
Short Summary:
This ABC News Landline segment focuses on the Bega Valley's ambitious project to become Australia's leading circular economy by 2030. The key points revolve around transforming waste into resources, utilizing innovative technologies, and fostering collaboration between businesses, government, and academia. Specific examples include using chicken manure as fertilizer, extracting minerals from whey waste, utilizing wood waste for energy, composting seafood waste, and cultivating seaweed. The implications are significant, encompassing environmental sustainability, economic growth through new industries (like seaweed farming), and community engagement. The detailed processes of waste recycling, composting, and resource recovery are highlighted throughout the segment.
Detailed Summary:
The video explores the Bega Valley's initiative to build a circular economy, focusing on several key areas:
Section 1: The McMillan Farm and Enterprise Stacking: The segment begins by showcasing Joselyn and Tom McMillan's mobile chicken farm, which provides free fertilizer to landowners while producing eggs. This exemplifies "enterprise stacking," where farmland serves multiple uses, creating a virtuous circle benefiting both farmers and landowners. Barry Irvin, Bega Group's executive chairman, highlights this as a perfect example of circularity, stating, "it's circularity...where everybody wins...from an economic point of view, from an output point of view, and from an environmental point of view."
Section 2: Bega Valley's Circular Economy Project: Barry Irvin explains his vision for transforming the entire Bega Valley into a circular economy, driven by its geographically contained nature, allowing for easier measurement and monitoring of progress. He was inspired by the Netherlands' goal of a fully circular economy by 2050, a concept explained by Lisa Mlan of Circularity Australia as moving from a linear "make, consume, dispose" model to one that prioritizes resource recovery and reuse. Mlan emphasizes that circularity is crucial for achieving Net Zero emissions, addressing the "embedded carbon" in materials.
Section 3: Bega Group's Circularity Initiatives: The segment details Bega Group's existing and planned circular economy projects. These include using wood waste to power their cheese plant, recovering minerals from whey waste, and diverting wastewater to irrigate pastures. Future projects involve biogas production from organics and seaweed cultivation using wastewater. The evaporator removing minerals from whey waste is highlighted as a successful example, generating significant revenue.
Section 4: Seaweed Farming and Blue Carbon: The potential of seaweed farming is explored, emphasizing its nutritional value, ability to utilize wastewater, and role in habitat restoration. Dr. Peia Wiberg discusses the successful export of Australian green seaweed, highlighting its potential to become a major industry. The segment also showcases the use of sea urchins, which are a pest, as a food source, demonstrating how waste can be transformed into a valuable product.
Section 5: Composting and Waste Management: The Crane brothers' fish and timber composting business is featured, demonstrating the transformation of seafood waste into fertilizer. Their partnership with Pentar Forestry highlights the potential for scaling up this type of operation. The segment also showcases the Bega Valley Council's FOGO (food and garden organics) program, reducing landfill waste and producing compost. The council's efforts to capture methane from landfills for carbon credits are also highlighted.
Section 6: The National Centre for Circularity: The segment concludes by showcasing the planned National Centre for Circularity in Bega, a collaborative effort between Bega Group, the NSW government, and other stakeholders. The center aims to promote education, research, and innovation in circular economy practices. The building itself is designed with end-of-life recycling in mind, reflecting the circular economy principles it promotes. Barry Irvin's ambition is to make Bega Valley a global leader in circularity, inspiring other regions to adopt similar practices.