Collaboration is key to a circular economy
A circular economy flips the script on waste, turning it into a valuable resource. Instead of the linear “take, make, waste” economy, in a circular system our resources circulate endlessly through the supply chain being used, reused, refurbished, then eventually recycled.
Just a 5% improvement in materials efficiency could boost the Victorian economy by $6.4 billion.
Sustainability Victoria connects Victoria’s circular economy leaders across government, academia, business, and industry to stimulate innovation and create a resilient economy for Victoria that will thrive in a future shaped by climate change.
Eliminating waste from our economy requires redesigning our products, services, business models, and systems. Business, industry, government and consumers must work together to future-proof Victoria’s economy against pressures on global supply chains, rising costs, and finite resources.
Our Circular Economy Business Innovation Centre (CEBIC) is a one-stop shop for businesses to connect, collaborate, and access the support they need to trial new business models to reduce or design out waste. Over the past two years CEBIC has distributed $7.6 million in funding to 23 circular businesses and 11 innovation projects on behalf of the Victorian Government.
It’s fostered a culture of collaboration across Victoria’s emerging circular economy, bringing together Victoria’s most innovative businesses to establish almost 200 new partnerships.
We're taking a look at 3 collaborations working to design out waste, while taking their whole industry with them on their circular journey.
Working together to ensure food is ‘tasted not wasted'
One of STREAT’s most popular products, the Watermelon Rind Pickle, turned scraps destined for waste into a profitable product. STREAT is a social enterprise helping vulnerable young people into employment. In 2021, it received $360,000 as part of Sustainability Victoria’s Circular Economy Innovation Fund to further develop its Open Sauce project, part of its Moving Feast initiative, a collective of food social enterprises.
'The Open Sauce project and Moving Feast are about bringing together as many like-minded food social enterprises as we can,' says Elise Bennetts, STREAT’s Deputy CEO and Chief Relationships Officer.
The project aims to increase materials efficiency across supply chains and improve the duration of a product’s lifecycle and value.
It’s predicted the funding from SV will avoid 1,295 tonnes of food waste and make possible 30 new circular products and services, including retail products like jams and chutneys made from glut farm produce.
'The grant allowed us to share and optimise our collective skills, infrastructure and resources to develop circular food products,' says Elise.
The project has also audited and mapped the supply chains, waste streams, assets, and capabilities across the Moving Feast network, and supported the development of the Waste Audit Guide – available online for any business to learn how to reduce waste and increase the circularity of items in their waste streams.
'Over the next couple of years, we anticipate having dozens of collaborators making hundreds of new circular products right across Victoria,' says Bec Scott, the CEO and Founder of STREAT.
Circular Farms
Up to 40% of what’s produced on Victorian farms never leaves the farm gate. That’s 150,000 tonnes of organic waste each year, worth $30 billion.
Most of this waste is either left on the farm to slowly decompose or is sent to landfill. In both cases it contributes to potent greenhouse gas emissions.
But a new online collaborative system in Gippsland is challenging the agriculture industry to do business differently. The platform connects producers to buyers, such as food banks, feed lots, commercial composters, or even bio-energy plants.
It’s a smarter, more cost effective solution to farm waste made possible by a $100k investment from SV’s Circular Economy Business Innovation Centre.
Circular Farms’ parent company, Connect One, has partnered with Food and Fibre Gippsland to connect farmers and improve their circularity practices.
'From day one, our main focus was building more collaboration in communities, connecting different dots in the system.'
Coming from a farming background himself, Vijeesh recognised the disconnect between producers and buyers that blocks the expertise necessary to be savvy about waste. 'We know that a lack of collaboration tools in agriculture result in a lot of wastage in terms of money, effort and time,' he says.
Toy story
56% of new plush toys end up as waste within a year of being bought. In Victoria, 51% of toys are thrown away within a year of being bought, creating 26,100 tonnes of waste. 87% of that – 22,700 tonnes – ends up going to landfill.
Sustainability Victoria has funded research – the first of its kind in Australia – by the Australian Toy Association to understand how we create toy waste. It tracks the different paths toys take after their first lives are over, and how different toys move through the economy. The research could become a roadmap and action plan for the toy industry to create circular business models.
Puzzles and games are the types of toys most likely to be reused. And youth electronics are most likely to end up as waste. The rest end up at charity shops, back with retailers with specialised return schemes, and at toy libraries. They’re also stored and stockpiled, re-gifted, exported, down cycled, and in rare cases recycled (toys are notoriously difficult to recycle because a single toy could be made up of many different types of plastic and polymers).
Ranking toys by category can inform circular economy solutions, including improved end-of-life management and recovery pathways. Circular solutions require full-system participation, so collaboration is crucial.
The report recommends expanding existing programs and schemes for collecting used toys, like the Terracycle and Big W Toys for Joy program, extending local government toy collecting and recovery, a new product stewardship scheme for all toys, and a new product stewardship program for specific classes of toys.
Doing business differently
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