Case study: Circular Economy 4 Business Pilot Program
The Circular Economy 4 Business Pilot Program is designed to provide small to medium businesses (SMEs) with knowledge of circular economy theory and global practices, practical skills and design and planning tools.
The program is led by Business Chamber Queensland, the University of Queensland (UQ)’s Centre for Policy Futures and funded by the Queensland Government’s Department of Environment and Science.
CE4B participants
Atlas Soils is a Townsville-based company that provides waste management services to clients seeking to divert organics and clean excavated material from landfill. They convert organic and earth waste materials into a range of commercial microbial humic soils and soil conditioners and provide soil enhancement services to farmers.
Through the CE4B program, Atlas Soils diverted over 1,000 tonnes of green waste and 300 tonnes of soil from landfill and produced enough HumiSoil to remediate around 250 hectares of land. The cost of landfill levies that would have otherwise occurred from disposing the waste was instead diverted to 24 local businesses along the supply chain.
During the CE4B program, Atlas Soils introduced a new cradle-to-cradle product-service system model that provided on-site soil regeneration services to farmers by converting the farm’s own agriculture-waste to humic soils which were then reapplied back onto the farm.
Full Circle Fibres
Full Circle Fibres joined the CE4B program to create a closed-loop textile supply chain domestically to reduce the growing volume of textile waste sent to landfill each year, particularly from the ‘fast fashion’ industry. Through the pilot project, they sought to test Australia’s national capability to repurpose textiles from end-of-life garments and production offcuts. Specifically, Full Circle Fibres aims were to trial new partnerships along the supply chain in collecting, sorting, and reprocessing offcuts and post-consumer textile waste.
The outcomes of Full Circle Fibres’ project included the diversion of 200kg of fibre and textile waste from landfill, the creation of new products to showcase to potential end-users such as government departments and corporations, and the creation of new partnerships and networks.