EcoMob, a Northern Territory-based company, is transforming food waste into a valuable resource – a nutrient-rich soil amendment. By utilizing a circular economy model, EcoMob collects food scraps, processes them, and creates a product that benefits both agriculture and the environment. The company's innovative approach addresses the significant issue of food waste in Australia, while simultaneously providing sustainable solutions for soil health and agricultural productivity.
From banana peels and bread crusts to spinach leaves that go slimy at the bottom of the packet, most households waste food. Each year Australians waste more than seven million tonnes of food across the supply chain, costing $36.6 billion to the economy. The waste is repurposed into a nutrient-rich soil 'amendment'. Billy Feeny is the director of EcoMob, which takes food scraps and transforms them into a nutrient-rich soil amendment. 'It's that circular economy,' he said.
'We pick the fruit, we eat the fruit, I recycle the fruit, and then the recycled fruit goes back into the ground to grow more fruit.''It's good to know that little by little we're changing things,' he said. Although in its early days, EcoMob is currently processing about three tonnes of food waste a week — and Mr Feeny anticipates rapid growth. 'We're working with Veolia — they collect it from those messes, then they bring it to us for processing. Once the food waste comes in, we tip it all out of the bins, then we throw it on our sorting tables, and then we go through sorting all the contamination out.' The sorted food scraps are placed in a dehydration machine, which uses heat, air and turning paddles to break down the food into an earthy, soil-like material. Fertiliser or fish food Mr Feeny said the product would be suitable for soils and helping plants grow, and researchers from the Northern Hub, a drought resilience organisation, have been analysing the organic matter to assess it's nutritional value and which industries could make use of the product. 'We're going to do some more tests, and then hopefully it'll be put into a trial on some farmland and some cropping, and then we can start to see how it benefits the soil and the crop over time,' she said. 'We want to make sure all that's tested and that we've ticked all the boxes before we use the product, but I would say we could a soil amendment for mango crops and tree crops, maybe more so than the vegetables, just to start with.' Ms Hinds said the soil amendment could reduce input costs for Top End farmers, who would be able to buy a local product with lower transport costs. Mr Feeny said he was also investigating whether the product could be used as a feed for chickens, ducks, fish and prawns. 'It creates a lot of different resources from waste …well, I don't like to call it waste — I see food waste now as a resource,' There are other companies around Australia doing similar work, but EcoMob is first in this space in the Northern Territory. Mr Feeny hopes to eventually expand the business throughout the NT, including into remote Indigenous communities to create local employment. The Northern Hub's Troy Garling said Mr Feeny was a role model. 'Whether it's fertiliser or whether it's fish meal, whatever it comes out, I think for the NT that's something to be proud of for all of us,
FOOD WASTE CIRCULAR ECONOMY SOIL AMENDMENT SUSTAINABILITY AGRICULTURE
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