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S2E3 - What is Circular Economy w/ Nicole Garofano
21 Plays7 days ago
Dr Nicole Garofano is an Australian leading expert in circular economy systems and sustainable materials management, recognised for her deep expertise in plastic waste and packaging value chains. She is currently the Head of Circular Economy Development at Planet Ark Environmental Foundation, where she works across industry, government, and research sectors to support the acceleration towards Australia’s transition to a circular economy. Nicole has over 20 years of experience in environmental education, waste management, international development, policy design, and circular economy. She holds a PhD from the University of Queensland focused on plastic packaging in island developing states. She has been a key voice in shaping national conversations on circular economy, and her work has advocated for systems-level change to improve design that embraces resource sufficiency and circular solutions.
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Transcript
Introduction to Infrastructure Connections and the Circular Economy
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with waste, it's it's actually, it's not just about the waste, it's actually about the culture that underpins consumption in each of those different countries.
00:00:15
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Welcome to Infrastructure Connections, where we explore what makes sustainable infrastructure work. Brought to you by the Infrastructure Sustainability Council, I'm your host, Rebecca Santiago, and today we'll be speaking about circular economy with Dr. Nicole Garofano.
00:00:34
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Nicole is a leading Australian expert in circular economy systems and sustainable materials management. With over 20 years of experience in environmental education, waste management, politics design and international development, Nicole is widely recognized for her deep expertise in waste.
00:00:57
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Hi Nicole, well thank you so much for joining us today. It's a pleasure to have you in the show. um And I have to say you have such a fascinating journey and I'm really looking forward to lauren learn about your experience and more about circular economy.
00:01:16
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me on the show, Rebecca. I'm really looking forward to our discussion. Thank you.
Exploring Ocean Plastic Pollution through X Expedition
00:01:22
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So back when you were pursuing your PhD, you joined a program called Expedition um and correct me if I'm wrong, was to tackle ocean plastic pollution.
00:01:34
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Could you please explain us more about the program and your experience? Yeah, great research, Rebecca. I think it's been five, six years, I think, since I started that investigation.
00:01:46
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So X Expedition was designed by Emily Penn from the UK after seeing plastic and her sailing adventures in the oceans. And what she came up with was a program that was focused on women ah because plastics can impact ah female hormones,
00:02:04
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potentially more than men. And so she wanted to make an all-women sailing adventure around the world. And she broke the the world voyage into 30 slots, 30 sectors, if you will.
00:02:16
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And in each of those sectors, there were 10 women who were invited to apply to participate in each of those sectors. And gratefully, I was accepted to participate in the sector from Cairns to Darwin, because it was a i global voyage you could have picked any of the voyages ah but sadly the x-ex expedition really got started just at the end of 2019 so by the time 2020 came around of course we were in the middle of covid and so unfortunately i wasn't able to participate in my league but however those that did get to complete their legs
00:02:53
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They had an incredible experience and did a number of of data collection, both in the sea and on the ocean, on the shorelines of what levels of plastics are contained in both of those areas. So there's been some great research that's been documented, but yes, sadly, I didn't actually get to sail. So maybe sometime in the future.
00:03:13
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Yes, absolutely. And that seems like a real world example of like confronting the plastic crisis and um that must add like the emotional level into the work.
Insights from Nicole's Waste Management Research
00:03:31
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Yes. So yeah um you mentioned that sadly you couldn't join the expedition, but um after that, do you think that was one of the reasons why you chose to focus your PhD in small islands?
00:03:46
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Yeah. No, so that's even even going further back. um So the ex-expedition was actually more of a a side project, if you will, while I was doing my PhD.
00:03:57
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But the reason why I chose ah to focus on small island developing states was actually having the pleasure pleasure and the privilege of living in Barbados in the Caribbean for eight years.
00:04:09
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So I had the chance to lead an environmental education NGO, But I ended up being the director of the organization and we led a number of programs that improved waste management. We had a tree planting program.
00:04:24
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um We did climate change adaptation education. But this focus on waste management was a core element of the program. And one of the things we started was a community recycling initiative.
00:04:37
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So my PhD initially focused on could we replicate perhaps some of what we did in Barbados in other regions of the world in island states in the Pacific for this context. And so that was the original intent. But of course, as anyone who's done research, the original intent does seem to morph as you progress.
00:04:57
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And so for me, it turned into actually this is part of a much bigger system. And so i ended up focusing on how, why and how plastic food and beverage packaging material arrives in small island developing states and what kinds of innovations could help improve their management. And I ended up doing a comparison between the Caribbean the Pacific and the Indian Ocean Islands.
00:05:21
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Wow. And um comparing the different islands where you based your research, were there places where the behaviour felt like easier or challenging compared to others?
00:05:34
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And why do you think that is? Yeah, I think, I mean, the cultures are quite different between each of the three regions. So we often think, oh, the Caribbean, they're all must be all the same islands.
00:05:46
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But just as all the islands in the Pacific are quite different, so too are the Caribbean islands. So I learned first off that Barbados is quite different to St. Vincent, to St. Lucia, Trinidad, et cetera.
00:05:58
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But even more when I came to do my PhD and studied in the Pacific, that the difference, the cultural differences, not just the culture, but also the economic realities of each of the regions is quite different.
00:06:12
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So, for example, with waste, it's it's actually it's not just about the waste. It's actually about the culture that underpins consumption in each of those different countries. What drives it? what What people see as a result of it? How can people afford it?
00:06:27
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How do people react to what they see about the waste that sits in those countries? So if you can be seen, for example, with a soft drink can um walking on the street, well, that means you can afford to buy a soft drink can.
00:06:39
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We see this play out in Australia that status, is associated with consumption. so So it's culturally ah influenced, but there's also policy and of course policy is at different levels, um different levels of enforcement of those policies based on resources.
00:06:57
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So I think the surprising thing for me was about culture and the cultural difference. um but also people's interaction with this concept of consumption, which we know obviously is is very much a part of our existence these days. So um the result of that is what we like to call waste, but they're actually resources.
00:07:16
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It's interesting that you mentioned um the culture factor. I don't know if you're a soccer fan, but last World Cup that was held in Qatar where the Japanese national soccer team were playing, the Japanese fans were actually picking up and collecting all the waste from the stadiums.
00:07:36
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And that to me was, yeah, something we need to learn about that the Japanese culture. Yes, yeah. Japan is a great example of a country that really embraces this concept of resource management.
00:07:48
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um There are some prefectures in Japan that have many, many streams of waste separation, one that's got about 42 different waste separation requirements within their community. and And I think we can learn a lot from that.
00:08:02
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What would you think the large countries can learn from the island communities. Again, this cultural this cultural nuance that happens in Global South countries, there's there's still a sense of community where people support each other, not everywhere, obviously, but but there's a general sense of community. There's a general sense of trust.
00:08:24
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There's a general sense of working together. And I think these are elements that still exist within what we call the Global South community. that we have lost, particularly in the urban centres of developed economies or in Australia anyway.
00:08:40
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ah We still see it in regional and remote areas in Australia where people still have that association and dependence upon each other much more than what we do in urban areas. But I think that that's something that we really need to reconsider about how we can bring some of those elements back because we can't you can't achieve a circular economy without collaboration and potentially one of the biggest collaboration efforts ever ever undertaken.
00:09:07
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no Thank you for sharing that.
Understanding Circular Economy Principles
00:09:09
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And obviously you're an expert in the field. And can you please help us answer the million dollar question, what exactly is circular economy?
00:09:19
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There's been a couple of studies done to show that there's more than 220 definitions of what is a circular economy. ah We do have an ISO standard now, for ah so an ISO suite of standards on circular economy, which is great. So I would argue that the definition that sits there would probably be the one that would most circulate for the coming years.
00:09:42
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But at a very high level, ah circular economy great. some It is a resource efficient economy. It really places a much higher value on what, how and why resources circulate.
00:09:58
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The circular economy has as three principles. and The first one is designing out waste and pollution. And for me, this is my soapbox because we know that 80% of the environmental impact of any product is actually determined in the design phase.
00:10:14
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So in practical terms, that means, and again, coming back to my my packaging perspective, ah knowledge, which is what my PhD is in. If we were designing a piece of packaging that is super complex, has got lots of thin layers made of different materials, hard to separate, it doesn't actually matter how much recycling is available for that product because the highest value exists in the individual materials. So the idea is we're trying to design products And a product can be a packaging, piece of textile, a vehicle, a building, piece of road that has the least amount of complexity because if we want to be able to separate though that product for recovery at end of life, the materials, if they're so complex, so entwined with each other, so in a complex way, the materials become much
00:11:06
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less worthwhile in recovering. So, you know, if you've got a piece of infrastructure, is it designed only to be demolished or could it be disassembled in the future? So it's about keeping materials in use for longer. So designing it to have a better outcome at end of life, keeping those materials in use for longer and at their highest value.
00:11:27
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And then the third principle is regenerating natural systems. and And ideally, the regeneration of natural systems should underpin you know, every decision that we make. um That leads us nicely to our next question ah because when it comes to recycling and circular systems, there's a lot of misconceptions that are just floating around.
00:11:49
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um What, if you could pick one myth about recycling, what would you pick and what would you challenge it?
00:12:01
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There's a general consensus or general way of thinking, shall we say, not even consensus, but a general way of thinking that circular economy equals recycling. And yes, recycling is a really important ah step on the ladder of circularity, if you will, but recycling alone does not equal circularity.
00:12:23
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um For example, ah you can design a product that technically can be recycled, but if we don't have a system and infrastructure that enables that particular product or material to be recovered,
00:12:40
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and be processed and to have a new market for that for that reprocessed product to go to, then it's not really a circular economy.
00:12:52
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What we need to have is is the ability to have scaled recycling that produces products that are needed for a market. And then we see start to see a considerable difference.
00:13:03
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When we think about recycling, particularly higher value recycling, there is ah there is still a strong dependence on virgin materials. ah So in order to recycle, we actually need to keep consuming virgin materials because not all products can be endlessly recycled.
The 10 R's of Circularity Explained
00:13:21
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Exactly. and so So as you mentioned, one of the principles of circular economy is designing out waste. And could you please explain us what does that mean in the context of infrastructure?
00:13:38
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Yeah, so I think, ah you know, infrastructure as an as a sector and and if we look at, if we take just the construction and demolition ah recovery rates that are documented in the National Waste Report, the the the sector broadly built environment that incorporates construction demolition does a pretty good job actually of, of you know, A, designing projects,
00:13:59
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you know Obviously, there longer-term contracts that are in place here when we're designing infrastructure and the ability to recover. There's quite a number of great examples. But what we're talking about with designing out waste, it's in any design, resource wastage should be minimised, but not just in...
00:14:19
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the post-use or post-consumption phase, it's actually in the production phase and it's in the use phase. And so the context of infrastructure, I think looking at what's called the 10 R's, and this is a list of of expanding out what might be the three R's that people might be familiar with, but It starts with refuse and ends with recovery of waste. And there's all, there's, you know, eight other options of which recycling is one of those.
00:14:45
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um Number nine is recycling, by the way. um But um it really highlights that, you know, if we if refuse is the first R, the question is to be asked, does a new piece of infrastructure need to be built at all?
00:15:01
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ah you know can the project in its traditional linear approach and design be refused? And one example that we learned about a few years ago was this concept from the Netherlands where they have a bridge bank where retired bridges are stored almost on a marketplace type um platform with all the relevant specs, you know the engineering, et cetera,
00:15:24
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And these bridges are available to buy and relocate. So if you are at a ah local council or provincial council, you can go to the bridge bank and have a look at what's on offer and actually refuse to build new because there is a bridge that's available that fits what you need.
00:15:41
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So refusing in the context of infrastructure, it requires a little bit of out-of-the-box thinking, I would say. ah But it is, you know, it's it's it's not just about the infrastructure, it's also about the materials.
00:15:54
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um If we look at our ecolo excuse me Ecologic in Victoria, you know using the big build projects that they have for their major infrastructure, what they've got in their biorecycled first ah priority is they're refusing virgin raw materials where they can in the first instance and they are using recovered content, you know aggregates, glass, plastic, timber, steel, et cetera.
00:16:21
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And so it's refusal of the actual piece of infrastructure, which is the bigger picture to ask the question of. But it also comes down to the materials and the resources that are used in the design.
00:16:33
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So there's lots of good examples, you know, designed for disassembly. Can you design the piece of infrastructure so that it's end of life, it can be disassembled with a higher value recovery in mind.
00:16:44
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We're talking about it's a bigger system that we're designing out the waste throughout the life cycle of the product. Yeah, thank you for sharing those examples. And it shows that Australia is actually progressing this area.
00:17:02
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area um But you did mention earlier um the 10 R's and I think it's valuable for our listeners to understand what those 10 R's stand for. Can you please focus that?
00:17:17
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Sure. So the first one is refuse. Refuse means basically prevent raw material use at all, ah which is where I was explaining that, you know, question whether the actual piece of infrastructure or the project needs to be built in that linear approach.
00:17:33
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So we've got one for refuse, two for reduce, three is redesign, four is reuse, as in using the product again, secondhand ah repair. Can the product be repaired rather than bought new? ah Could a product be refurbished for the sum of its parts?
00:17:50
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Could it be remanufactured? So can a new product be made from secondhand materials? Could the product be repurposed? So using repurposing it in its current form but with a different function.
00:18:04
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Number nine is recycling and number 10 is recover. So that's energy from waste. So refuse, reduce, redesign, reuse, repair, refurbish, remanufacture, repurpose, recycle and recover.
00:18:18
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Yeah. It's amazing how um now, like if you look a few years back, we didn't even have a framework. No. Yeah. And, um but also, um and I speak for myself, I feel overwhelmed with um reports that are coming out.
Australia's Circular Economy Progress
00:18:39
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So for instance, the 2025 report by the Green Building Council and the New South Wales government showed that 95% of construction materials use our source from virgin materials. And that what you were touching on that.
00:18:55
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So that means that Australia is only 4.6% circular in that industry. So again, like... Well, it's 4.6% circular across the country, actually. Across the country, yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah Not just in infrastructure, yeah. that That again, I mean, we are making progress, but at the same time, it's shocking and like, we can't ignore those numbers.
00:19:19
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Yeah, the 4.6% that you mentioned, which is from a CSIRO study, ah even the CSIRO say that we could get to 20% in Australia. It's still not 100%. So this is what I'm saying. We're not in this this ah you know misconception that the whole thing has got to 100%. We'll never get there. We've actually created a system that we will never get there.
00:19:42
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But we do need to reduce our virgin material resource consumption. And this sector particularly is one that can really provide some great opportunities to do that.
00:19:54
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Yeah. I mean, some sectors might get there, might get higher numbers than others. You know, maybe you could get 60% in a particular value chain of a particular product line. um But the reality is that what we need to do is just reduce our impact on the planet. We need to be looking at at consuming sufficiently, not for the sake of just putting products onto market, we actually need to think sufficiency rather than, and efficiency, rather than just consumption for the sake of consumption.
00:20:26
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So I think our listeners will like to hear that there's a lot of information out there. There's a lot of misconceptions, um but also it's very overwhelming.
00:20:43
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um yeah So is there something you can... um tell our lesson is to go and learn for themselves and to get involved into circular economy?
00:20:57
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There is an increasing a community of practice which is supporting ah to demystify, supporting activities to demystify what a circular economy means. So i think we need more of those ah to be able to spread spread the word, if you will, more widely so that people start to get comfortable with with what it means to them. it it doesn't It doesn't always mean huge investments. It's actually looking at what you're already doing and and looking at it through a different lens.
Resources for Circular Economy Education
00:21:29
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So, yeah.
00:21:31
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Yeah, I think there's there is, that as you say, there is so much information these days. I think for for us ah here in Australia, it's important to see what case studies there are available in in this space, in the infrastructure space.
00:21:48
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um you know they're there I go to Ecologic as as probably the most commonly cited example. ah However, there are a number of websites, you know, PlanetArc, we've got the acehub.org.au.
00:22:01
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um We also have Sustainability Victoria. They have a great website from their CBIC program on circular economy. ah But if you really want to see where progress is taking place, Europe is really ah leader.
00:22:16
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The European Commission is a leader in what does it mean to to be circular. The Eco Design Sustainable Products Regulation from the European Commission, which was put into power this year, spells out very nicely what a circular future looks like with a policy that can be enforced.
00:22:36
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But, yeah, so in summary, we have our acehub.org.au. We also have a circo training program, which ah is available online on remote delivery methods and this helps businesses to walk through their value chain and actually deconstruct and look at where the opportunities are within their own context.
00:22:57
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So, you know, things like that are useful. So lots of resources. Maybe take it a little bit at a time. Maybe spend, it you know, an hour of every week or something if you're really interested and just doing some searches to see what you come across. so Thank you. Thank you so much.
00:23:15
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for for your passion, for your vision, and for also giving us that that hope that we can we can um actually make that mark of 30%.
00:23:26
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thirty percent ah But, yeah. Maybe. I'm not saying that, but let's say. Let's lets aim for it. You've got to have an ambition. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Nicole.
00:23:37
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Bye. Thank you so much for having me. i've really enjoyed it. Thanks, Rebecca.
00:23:43
Speaker
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00:23:54
Speaker
We would love to hear your thoughts and your feedback helps shape the conversations that we bring to life. Stay tuned to our next episode. And until then, keep connecting, keep building, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.