Collaboration on circular economy initiatives

Cross sector collaborations focused on regional needs would help the fishing and aquaculture sector expand circular economy initiatives.

By Catherine Norwood

Circular economy principles and practices are already embedded in some Australian fishing and aquaculture operations but there are opportunities to do more according to a new study examining current practices.

Professor Kate Barclay from the University of Technology Sydney has led an FRDC-funded project, to identify circular economy opportunities and barriers preventing those opportunities from being realised.

A circular economy approach

Kate says for fisheries and aquaculture, a circular economy approach offers a more holistic and far-reaching vision of sustainability than the conventional focus on preventing overfishing and avoiding pollution.

"It's about generating value from efforts to improve environmental performance and reducing the negative environmental impacts that could come from fishing and aquaculture, not just preventing overfishing or pollution," Kate explains.

See an enlarged view of this Circularity for Seafood butterfly infographic from FRDC Project 2020-078

Circular economy initiatives offer a three-pronged positive impact: increased resource efficiency, healthier aquatic ecosystems, and the creation of added economy-wide value and new employment.

Kate highlights integrated multi-trophic aquaculture as an example of circular production in action, using the excrement from one organism (such as prawns) as food for another species in the ecosystem (such as algae).

Other circular economy initiatives commonly aim to reduce the impacts of plastics, metals, fuels, gases and other materials in a supply chain. While the use of all parts of the creature being harvested (including tails, guts and frames) minimises waste materials that end up as landfill, or as harmful gas or water emissions.

Vessels, fishing gear and other equipment is maintained and kept in use longer and materials at end-of-life are assessed for recyclabilityalong every element of the supply chain.

The project included a workshop with industry participants to map potential opportunities along the fisheries and aquaculture supply chain. It also conducted 35 interviews with businesses to identify initiatives already underway across five areas of operation - plastics, organic waste, water and wastewater, energy and collaborative consumption. As a result some barriers deterring new initiatives and preventing the expansion of existing ones were identified.

Cross-sector initiatives

Kate says the small size of many operations in the fisheries and aquaculture sector, as well as the geographic spread across Australia, were identified as barriers to aggregating waste materials for recycling or reuse. This made it difficult to achieving the economies of scale needed for initiatives such as waste reuse or recycling.

Developing cross-sectoral collaborations to facilitate circular economy opportunities is a key recommendation of the report. Opportunities include the aggregation of organic waste with the agricultural and municipal sectors, recycling or replacing soft plastics with the retail sector, and combining other plastics used in fishing gear with agricultural plastics for recycling.

Other recommendations suggest facilitating the recycling of plastics by tapping into existing government programs, as well as developing treatments to allow for the recycling of plastics contaminated by seafood, along with supporting compostable plastic alternatives.

Clearer information about the types and recyclability of plastics was called for, along with increasing the potential for recycling by limiting the types of plastics used across the industry to only those that are recyclable.

Barriers to innovation

However, Kate says a range of regulations were flagged as potential barriers to the consolidation and reuse of materials from the fisheries and aquaculture sector.

The report calls for a separate study of regulatory barriers, including those related to food safety, biological contamination, fisheries management, renewable energy generation and import/export trade.

For food-based waste that can be re-used, participants identified the cost of cold-chains or freezer space required to amassing sufficient product as an additional cost, and one that could undermine other efforts to reduce a business's carbon footprint. The study also found that small businesses often struggle to absorb these kinds of additional supply chain costs.

Circular perspectives

Recycling and reuse of materials seemed to be top of mind for many participants in the project, and there is significant government support for these kinds of activities.

However, Kate says other aspects of the circular economy are not as widely recognised, such as regenerative aquaculture - not just avoiding harm, but actively making the environment better than it was. Shellfish farms, for instance, provide an ecological service in filtering water and improving water quality.

"Circular economy principles are less widely known in Australia than in Europe and North America. There are activities in the fishing and aquaculture sector that apply circular principals, but we don't generally think of them in this way," says Kate.

"For example, fisheries co-ops are part of the circular economy, in the sense that they share infrastructure and services, so not every individual company or every individual person needs to have their own equipment. It's about the efficient use of resources, which applies circular economy principles."

She says business and financial considerations currently drive most circular economy initiatives. These include efforts to reduce costs, such as landfill fees for waste, or offset energy costs with solar power. However, there is a growing consideration of environmental, sustainability and governance trends, and the value of incorporating circularity into the broader context of a business's operations.

Case studies

Case studies identified as part of the project include businesses processing organic waste. Seaweedery turns prawn shells into high value prawn oil for human consumption and All Fish for Dogs uses fish waste and bycatch to produce organic, dried dog treats. Ocean2Earth composts fish waste while Venus Shell Systems uses nutrient waste and carbon dioxide to grow seaweed in a land-based system.

In the plastics domain, Tassal is actively pursuing recycling of the plastics involved in its Atlantic Salmon farming operations, and TomKat Line Fish has developed reusable and recyclable cool chain packaging alternative to polystyrene. The Great Wrap has also developed a compostable bioplastic for use in catering and pallet wrapping.

Ballina Fishing Cooperative and Murray Cod Australia provide two examples of solar power use, while TomKat Line Fish has installed both solar power and a wind power generator.

Water related initiatives include the use of dry filleting by TomKat Line Fish, and groundwater for growing Barramundi by Mainstream Aquaculture. Tailor Made Fish Farms also re-uses the wastewater from its aquaculture in an aquaponics system to grow fresh vegetables.

Fishing cooperatives generally offer an example of collaborative consumption principles, as does the Farmer meets Foodie online market place, which connects customers with locally-based producers of all kinds of food, including seafood.

For more information, download the Circular economy opportunities for fisheries and aquaculture in Australia final report (FRDC Project 2020-078).

This reflects R&D Plan Outcomes 1, 2, 3 and 5

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