Bega's bid to become a circular economy to reduce waste ♻️ 🐔 🐄 🥛🧀 🗑️ | ABC Australia

The global population of just over eight billion uses nearly two planets worth of resources a year.

Organised and wide-scale recovery, recycling and reuse of those resources instead of throwing them away is known as 'circularity'.

Banks, big consultancies and universities are backing Bega in New South Wales to have Australia's first regional circular economy.

It starts with chooks, includes wood waste and whey, sea urchins and shells and ends with household green waste.

And it's all good for farming. Pip Courtney reports.

📽 Video produced and edited by ABC Landline.

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[debbierobins]

What a fantastic group of people, I hope more Australians hear about the work being done in Bega and follow suit. Great job Bega.

[ichifish]

Thank you for this inspiring video, ABC. As an American I'm particularly impressed by the environmental knowledge and political will evident in this rural community. I have faith that Barry Irvin's ambitious plan will come to fruition. Good luck, Bega Group and the community!

[stephenwhitworth]

Thankyou Land Line, thankyou folk of the Bega Valley, what a fantastic outcome. What a great demonstration of what people at the community level can ignite. The change that can be a blueprint, set repeat and set repeat. My sincere praise and thanks. wow

[bertanelson]

Glad to see this coming to fruition somewhere. These are ideas that flourished in the 70's, then again in the 90's with permaculture taking the forefront then. Perhaps finally the time has come for it to take hold. By the way, "dumps" or "landfills" always used to be open not only for people bringing but for those who were looking for items. When they were closed, that avenue for recycling stopped. Let's have more co-ops, volunteer groups & small farmers/gardeners get involved. Many people have great ideas they've worked out on their own.

[seastar]

Brilliant! Needed Australia wide and worldwide asap!

[abelangjq]

Reusing waste outputs from one organism(company) as inputs for another, truly an ecosystem, truly circular, very exciting!
Personally, I feel every household should get into gardening, composting, and reusing their food scraps as compost as well.

[kevdimo]

Wow I’m one of those people who has never heard of Circular Economy. I’m 61 years old, and should’ve known about it. I’m not surprised by the fact that it’s happening in the Bega valley, i lived not far away in the Eurobodalla shire region. It’s a great part of Australia and deserves to be a leader in this endeavour. I wish all the players the best in their individual careers, that brings this philosophy to fruition. 👍🏼

[amesbabom]

This really gives me hope, to see industry and farmers taking the lead

[cinemaipswich]

Mobile Chicke Coops have been praised for the single property holder. Now it seem to be a "block of flats" of chickens. Looks good.

[kellyyager]

Thank you so much for introducing this project to Australia, Bega! Brilliant! I regularly watch a Brit who has a monthly clip of Good News. I would love to see Bega’s Circular Economy on that channel. Europe and parts of Asia and North America are the headlines in the work they are doing to protect environments, reintroduce keystone animals e.g. the beaver has been reintroduced to London rivers; and the efforts of particularly Northern European countries to educate the everyday consumer that everything doesn’t go in the red bin. Different methodologies will work in different cities and towns but the end goal needs to be the same. Brilliant story ABC. Cheers

[thedudescar]

Thanks Landline, we need to see the bright clever rural people doing and ' getting ' what many have been pushing for decades ' circularity'.
The next push is to pursue this nationally and use the knowledge to improve all our landscapes👍

[michaelcauser]

Fantastic view of a community working together to achieve a great result. My bins normally go out once a month, being a small Red general waste bin, a large yellow recycle bin and now a green food and similar recycle bin. I still see overflowing red bins out every week in this suburb and can only think how wasteful, or just plain lazy/can't be bothered, so many families are.
I look forward to seeing this process grow throughout Aus.

[Handleyman]

This really is pure genius. The word “waste” needs to be changed to “resource”. It really is win win win. I’ll be watching this very carefully!

[geekswithfeet]

There is huge additional benefit to bringing sea nutrients back into agriculture. Particularly iodine, which has been proven to reduce methane production of cattle by up to 99%

[brianohehir]

This is just fantastic! At last a strategy that moves towards the cycles of nature. Thanks aunty for spreading the word!

[SoniaH-mg]

It’s a fantastic way to move back to, I really hate this throw away culture that we have adapted worldwide. When I was growing up my grandfather farmed with nothing new, implements and things were made to last a century - often 2nd hand, 3rd hand etc etc now they are made to last 10 years maybe….if you can find parts.

[joblo]

Great ideas. We need to see more like it. Innovation driven from the ground up rather than by government.

[loverlyme]

I love Landline. I only lived in the far west of NSW for less than a decade but I've been addicted to new (and some old revisited) ideas for doing farming better. I have no idea why there is so much waste around, except that there are far too many ignorant people who are stuck in their ways. I'm glad Landline can tap into some of what is proving to be helpful to transmit to those in agriculture and fishing industries.
If only I could get more of my local coffee shops and businesses to see that their waste does not need to be wasted.
I have to go outside of my local council area to pick up left over coffee beans to reuse! No-one in my area will donate them. They'd rather throw them in the trash. I use them to keep crawling bugs off my plants (in a tiny courtyard); to make mosquito repelling candles for use in summer; and to add to my compost bin.
Thankfully, my local fishmonger has seen sense to supply me with some discarded parts of fish at a good rate. I've upped my protein levels by using discarded fish skins to make healthy keto or carnivore crisps and make fish stock.
I'm sure there's so much more that can be done if only we, even as individuals, knew what supplies (ie other's waste) were available. It doesn't have to happen on a big scale only.

[nksb]

It's wonderful to have some good and optimistic news reported about australian agriculture. Really enjoyed watching this.

[tazsnoop]

Good on them all, now the rest of Australia needs to take note and do