A longer term vision for waste minimisation in rural and regional industry with university engagement

For many years now, industry production processes have typically started at one end with raw materials and other inputs and finished at the other end with manufactured goods and waste products (the classic linear input-output model). These linear pathways are increasingly contributing to natural resource shortages, atmospheric emissions, pressure on water supplies, and waste, thus contributing significantly to waste disposal problems. In the developing discipline of industrial ecology, 'integrated biosystems', utilise the wastes and by-products of one organisation as inputs for another, thus providing a means of closing 'waste loops'. Theoretically, this can achieve greater utilisation from a given amount of natural resource use, whilst simultaneously lowering some input costs and environmental impacts. At the University of New England, Armidale, a research team, comprising the authors, is attempting to design and implement such a system amongst a group of co-located industries in the regional city of Tamworth. This paper reports on experiences to date with a view to making policy-makers and town planners aware of the potential benefits of such projects, but also to highlight some unexpected institutional constraints encountered in the process. These problems will need to be addressed before acceptance of such initiatives is more commonplace. Our experience with the project suggests that perhaps the single most important step policy-makers can take now, in order to create a future of less waste, is to introduce the financial incentives for businesses to conserve natural resources. This can be done in ways that do not impost a net cost to them.