UnEarth Magazine.

Words by Madeline Sully, Photography by Ellie Thorson.

The Circular Economy has four key pillars: ‘use less, use longer, use again and make clean.’ Applying these principles to the agriculture and aquaculture industries may not be your first thought. Still, waste within the food system is a huge issue and has detrimental environmental and human health consequences. The circular economy and its associated principles could provide an excellent framework for progress toward sustainable food systems, but theory can only take us so far. Solving this problem is no small feat because we require a multi-pronged approach that acknowledges farmers’ livelihoods, the impact of industrial farming on the ever-warming climate, and our ever-lessening access to resources. Luckily, industrial innovations centred around circularity are cropping up at every corner – they just don’t seem to be implemented at scales that could positively change the industry. This article will outline barriers within governance which are inhibiting change for the future and query if hope is on the horizon.     

According to WWF, we waste 15% of annual food production before it leaves the farm. There is also process-related waste, for example, peels, husks, shells, and agrochemical runoff. This waste has consequences, contributing to air and water pollution and 6% of total global CO2 emissions. Waste is a particularly ominous issue because it seems an inevitability of our ways of living, but new research continuously provides us with new ways to process residual materials. One exciting circular process involves crustaceans and their shells. Over 75% of crustaceans’ total weight ends up as a by-product, with 8.1 million tons of crustacean waste produced in Asia and Australia alone annually. However, three University of Sydney students have created a fully biodegradable alternative to single-use plastic called CARAPAC, made from the chitin and cellulose found in crustacean exoskeletons. The benefits of this product over plastic are innumerable. Chitin and its derivatives are antifungal and antimicrobial, so using them to package food reduces the probability of further waste by increasing shelf life by up to a week. CARAPAC also removes recycling from the waste-processing chain, as CARAPAC breaks down in soil in 3-6 weeks, while simultaneously releasing nutrients into the soil and improving soil nutrition. There is an opportunity to eliminate plastic waste while benefitting the environment, so why don’t governments mandate these incredible innovations? 

It is frustrating to see so many promising ideas and so much stagnation around their implementation. Regulatory barriers are one principle reason behind this. On a global scale, we lack policies that support sustainable economic transition, and this inhibits market transition because corporations have limited motivation to alter their processes. Additionally, the food industry is incredibly delicate in its relationship to waste; disease transmission can be high between livestock and consumers. Circular processes carry a higher risk of disease proliferation, especially when reusing waste within the same production lines, such as the crustacean exoskeletons used within the marine aquaculture industry. Additionally, there isn’t enough supportive policy regarding the cost of a circular transition. If virgin materials are cheaper than their sustainable counterparts, how can we expect corporations, whose priority will always be profit, to switch? We must make space for policies that offer protections for corporations and farmers alike while nurturing significant innovations in sustainable food production.  

Luckily, this has started to happen. For example, the UK implemented legislation in April 2022 that taxes all manufacturers and importers of plastic packaging containing less than 30% recycled content. Policies like these are a great ‘nudging’ tool, making alternatives to our current system seem more attractive. If plastic packaging becomes unattractive in the food industry, we could see commercial uptake of creations like CARAPAC, reducing waste within multiple links in the sector’s supply chain.  

A few calls to governmental action still need to be made. There are solutions to almost every barrier to implementing circular concepts in the food industry. Reducing disease risk can be as simple as redirecting waste to be reused outside of its original sector, like reusing marine waste in freshwater aquaculture instead. We also need more fiscal incentives that blend public and private finance because it is evident that this reduces perceived financial risk, catalysing the accumulation of funding for much-needed innovation in the sector. There is hope for a world where we see waste as an economic opportunity rather than a burden; we just need governments to see it that way first.