00:02Apple season is in full swing at a family-run farm in the Bickley Valley.
00:06The discarded fruit, a treasure of sorts.
00:09Oh, there's more over here.
00:11Linlu started as an academic ten years ago,
00:14mapping by-products in the abalone industry,
00:17but it sparked bigger ideas.
00:19It costs the same to grow a first-grade apple
00:22as it does a second-grade or a processing-grade apple.
00:24There are sunk costs there if you can use 100% of what you're producing.
00:29Most of us are aware that waste is becoming a huge issue.
00:32As a country, we're generating 76 million tonnes per year.
00:36That's about 2.9 million tonnes per person.
00:40And heaps of it is ending up in landfill.
00:43But there are some weird and wonderful ways to use food scraps.
00:47So what I get is pure cellulose that comes out,
00:49and then from there I process that into either paper, leather or wood products.
00:55But it could be turned into a bioplastic,
00:57it can be turned into any uses.
00:59So you can, instead of growing a tree which takes 75 years,
01:03you can grow this in a week.
01:05Matt fits this around his day job, and having a waste broker is critical.
01:10You have a start-up, and you don't know what to do with it.
01:12And she helps find a market for it.
01:14At this collie dump in WA, Renegy is using thermal conversion
01:18to transform rubbish into vinegar, biochar and oil.
01:22We can process just under about 30,000 tonnes of biomass waste per year,
01:28and 4,000 tonnes per annum of the town's municipal solid waste.
01:33More than 70% of the waste is recovered and turned into new products.
01:38Biochar from the plant has already been used on several fruit farms,
01:41and a winery in southern WA.
01:44The project is funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
01:47And once fully up and running,
01:49it will be one of the biggest producers in the country.
01:52I think it's important for people to see that it's possible,
01:55because there are so many naysayers.
01:57A waste warrior on a recycling mission.
