Country Wide: Circular Economy Focus

Waste not want not - shifting the focus on rubbish

• Rebecca Greaves
  
  From the outside, people often view waste as a simple industry, with not much happening. In reality, it’s an innovative industry with a lot of moving parts and in our latest issue we dive into waste and what we can be doing onfarm to improve our processes and systems - in particular the concept of circular economy.
  
  But what does this mean? WM New Zealand Managing Director Evan Maehl says it’s about keeping resources. “We do have a finite resource on this planet. It’s about keeping the resources we do have in play for as long as possible. Things can go around in a circle and, if they can’t, we need to question whether we are using the right products. How do we keep things going around for longer and longer?”
  
  Maehl says there’s a lot of pressure on the primary sector around sustainability, something he remembers well from his time spent at the other end of the supply chain, in the wine industry.

Waste takes many different forms onfarm and there’s some great initiatives out there with an aim to give these resources another life - sometimes even back on the same farm! So when it comes to the circular economy of recycling onfarm waste, it’s about viewing it as a resource, rather than rubbish. 

In this episode, we hear from three experts – Evan Maehl, Managing Director of WM New Zealand; Greg Coppell, farmer and founder of Repost; and Tony Wilson, Chief Executive of Agrecovery – who discuss the exciting ways we can begin to utilise onfarm waste as a resource.

Listen online below, or via your favourite podcast platform!