Integrated Biosystems for Resource Conservation in Rural Industries: An Australian Experience

For many years now, industrial production structures have started with raw materialsand other inputs and finished with manufactured goods and waste products. These linear pathwaysare contributing to natural resource shortages, increased emissions into the atmosphere, pressure onwater supplies, and problems with disposal of steadily accumulating solid wastes. Within the new scienceof industrial ecology, 'integrated biosystems', wherein the wastes and by-products of one firmare used as inputs for another firm, is a means of creating a 'waste loop'. In theory, this can achievemore 'service' from a given amount of natural resource use at the same time as lowering some inputcosts and environmental impacts. In Australia, a research team, which includes the authors, isattempting to design and implement such a system amongst a group of co-located firms in a ruraltown. This paper reports on our experience to date, with a view to alerting policy-makers to thepotential benefits of such projects and also to some unexpected institutional constraints we haveencountered. The constraints will need to be addressed before initiatives such as this can becomecommonplace.