Closing the Loop on Food Waste: Stakeholder Views and Experiences from Southeast Queensland, Australia

Nikita Zatyko, Savindi Caldera () and Cheryl Desha
Additional contact information
Nikita Zatyko: Cities Research Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, QL 4111, Australia
Savindi Caldera: Cities Research Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, QL 4111, Australia
Cheryl Desha: Cities Research Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, QL 4111, Australia

Waste, 2023, vol. 1, issue 3, 1-14

Abstract: Every year in Australia, the household, commercial and industry sectors generate more than five million tonnes of food waste, with the majority of it ending up in landfills that are costly to run and diminishing in availability. There are urgent calls for effective waste management practices to better address the challenges related to increasing volumes of food waste. This study evaluates potential food waste collection and composting initiatives that will ensure the implementation of the appropriate policies and technologies, and best practice of utilizing food waste as a natural resource. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with practitioners from the Southeast Queensland waste industry to gain insights on the challenges and opportunities for implementing a Food Organics, Garden Organics (FOGO) system. The interviews revealed five key themes: levies and taxes, capital investment challenges, lack of capacity, contract inefficiencies, and separate waste streams. Organisations and companies in the waste industry heavily rely on funding in order to technologically advance. There is a divergence of attention between technology and policy. Advancement of technology grows faster than the policies that regulate the appropriate use and level of effectiveness of the introduced technology. Both policy and technological changes need to occur simultaneously for Queensland to evolve and develop a social-economic system that favours a non-wasteful and sustainable future.

Keywords: food waste; food organics garden organics (FOGO); closing the loop; circular sustainable economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q16 Q18 Q2 Q20 Q23 Q24 Q25 Q28 Q3 Q31 Q38 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2813-0391/1/3/38/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2813-0391/1/3/38/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jwaste:v:1:y:2023:i:3:p:38-653:d:1191234

Access Statistics for this article

Waste is currently edited by Mr. Sumail Li

More articles in Waste from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().