00:00:01
a world choking on waste
00:00:03
and running out of resources
00:00:06
something has to change how can we
00:00:09
design an economy
00:00:11
where we don't waste all these resources
00:00:15
meet the people
00:00:16
grabbing opportunities around the world
00:00:19
in a new way of doing business
00:00:21
where nothing goes to waste
00:00:24
the circular economy will change how we
00:00:27
use
00:00:27
everyday products and our urban
00:00:30
landscape
00:00:32
it could bring massive environmental and
00:00:34
financial benefits
00:00:37
this is just the beginning of really
00:00:40
being able to solve a global problem
00:00:43
but is the world ready
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[Music]
00:01:21
[Music]
00:01:22
at one of the world's largest landfills
00:01:24
near jakarta
00:01:27
admiral is one of thousands scratching
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out a living
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[Music]
00:01:50
he often gets injured by broken glass
00:01:52
and nails
00:01:53
and there's an even bigger danger
00:02:18
but should they live with it and should
00:02:20
the world
00:02:22
this is the linear approach to
00:02:24
consumption
00:02:26
produce use dispose
00:02:29
but it's not really working anymore not
00:02:32
for the environment
00:02:33
and not for the economy
00:02:39
half a world away an influential think
00:02:42
tank
00:02:42
is promoting a more circular approach
00:02:46
we extract more resources from our
00:02:49
planet
00:02:50
than our planet can replenish so we need
00:02:53
1.6 earths to be able to feed
00:02:57
all of us but also to provide resources
00:02:59
and that's the problem we don't have 1.6
00:03:02
earths we have one planet earth
00:03:04
almost everything we make in this
00:03:06
economy is designed
00:03:07
for a throwaway culture almost
00:03:10
everything gets either burned
00:03:12
dumped or landfilled and
00:03:15
not only are we throwing away a lot of
00:03:17
resources but we waste
00:03:19
also a lot of money
00:03:23
the foundation estimates the world
00:03:25
economy would benefit by
00:03:27
trillions of dollars if we changed our
00:03:29
relationship
00:03:30
with resources and products the daily
00:03:33
items we take for granted
00:03:35
would stay in circulation for much
00:03:37
longer even
00:03:38
indefinitely either as the same thing or
00:03:41
repurposed into something else
00:03:44
and so the circular economy is based on
00:03:47
three key principles
00:03:49
design our waste and pollution keep
00:03:51
materials in use
00:03:53
and regenerate natural systems and when
00:03:56
you apply these principles
00:03:57
there's an opportunity to capture this
00:03:59
multi-trillion
00:04:00
economic opportunity while also tackling
00:04:03
some of the biggest challenges that we
00:04:05
face today
00:04:06
around climate change biodiversity loss
00:04:09
and plastic pollution
00:04:16
back in indonesia a team is tackling
00:04:18
plastic pollution
00:04:19
head-on it's a notorious waste problem
00:04:24
that also has largely untapped economic
00:04:26
potential
00:04:30
jazlan and his crew go out once a week
00:04:32
to collect plastic from the coastline
00:04:37
they've collected almost 100 tons just
00:04:40
in the past year so it's during moonsoon
00:04:42
in the north side of bintan
00:04:44
they get plastic pollution a lot from
00:04:48
the
00:04:48
ocean from south china sea but in the
00:04:51
east side of bintan
00:04:53
you might see plastic west from the
00:04:55
local to be honest some of the people
00:04:57
they still
00:04:58
do purposely they throw it into the sea
00:05:00
the rubbish
00:05:01
[Music]
00:05:03
they also work in the local mangrove
00:05:06
forests where the plastic impacts the
00:05:08
ecosystem for marine life
00:05:13
and they visit a protected marine area
00:05:16
of bintan
00:05:18
reefs previously damaged by dynamite
00:05:20
fishing
00:05:21
now have to contend with fishing nets
00:05:23
and other plastic
00:05:25
i want to scream actually if it's i see
00:05:29
river ocean is full of plastic i think
00:05:32
why
00:05:33
the people don't care about this why do
00:05:36
people use ocean
00:05:39
like huge trust bank for them
00:05:48
the cleaner is part of a venture that's
00:05:50
the brainchild of an entrepreneur
00:05:52
who spent his life between asia and the
00:05:54
uk
00:05:56
[Music]
00:05:57
so my background in singapore really is
00:06:00
on the finance side i think it's fair to
00:06:02
be said that i can be
00:06:04
described as an accidental
00:06:06
environmentalist my wife and i were
00:06:08
on holiday in the south andaman sea and
00:06:11
it was
00:06:11
absolutely stunning now to our shock and
00:06:14
horror
00:06:15
what happened overnight was the
00:06:17
combination of a high tide
00:06:18
a storm and a garbage patch and
00:06:21
essentially what had
00:06:22
happened was the beach was so covered in
00:06:24
plastic the next morning
00:06:26
that you couldn't even walk on it it's
00:06:28
really shocking and for us it just
00:06:29
kicked us
00:06:30
into action we we knew we couldn't
00:06:32
change the world but we could come back
00:06:33
to singapore
00:06:34
and we could start to try and make a
00:06:35
difference
00:06:38
he's using his financial savvy to get
00:06:40
the attention of backers
00:06:42
with deep pockets we work with companies
00:06:45
to allow them to offset their plastic
00:06:48
footprint by
00:06:49
investing in ocean cleanup and waste
00:06:52
management infrastructure projects
00:06:54
overseas in hotspots and that generates
00:06:56
the capital we need to employ people on
00:06:58
fair wages
00:06:59
stop plastic entering the ocean and
00:07:01
remove plastic from the ocean
00:07:03
we are targeted to remove 10 million
00:07:06
kilos of plastic from the ocean
00:07:09
by 2025 across the seven worst plastic
00:07:12
polluting countries
00:07:13
all of which are either here in
00:07:15
southeast asia or in south asia
00:07:17
in the world of tomorrow plastics will
00:07:19
certainly call the tune
00:07:21
[Music]
00:07:23
plastic is a relatively recent invention
00:07:26
derived from oil
00:07:28
it's undeniable usefulness has helped it
00:07:31
reach every corner of our lives
00:07:34
and so the amount of plastic has
00:07:37
exploded
00:07:39
by 2050 if nothing changes there'll be
00:07:42
more plastic in the ocean
00:07:44
than fish plastic micro particles are
00:07:47
being found in our drinking water
00:07:49
air and food it's estimated the average
00:07:52
person
00:07:53
could be eating a credit card worth of
00:07:55
plastic every week
00:07:58
[Music]
00:08:02
the plastic tom's team retrieves
00:08:04
currently goes to a so-called
00:08:06
sanitary landfill but he's now got
00:08:09
investors
00:08:10
to help build a new recovery facility
00:08:13
it will collect plastic before it
00:08:16
reaches the ocean
00:08:17
and send it for recycling i truly
00:08:20
believe that society
00:08:22
can change and evolve into a more
00:08:24
circular economy
00:08:25
it has to start with the waste
00:08:27
management infrastructure
00:08:29
if we don't have that in place we just
00:08:30
cannot do it
00:08:33
another project is a floating device to
00:08:36
retrieve plastic from rivers
00:08:38
which are the main source of plastic in
00:08:40
the ocean
00:08:42
we're actually working at the moment to
00:08:43
get the first system installed in either
00:08:45
vietnam or thailand
00:08:47
as we speak so big things are coming
00:08:51
but plastic is still being produced in
00:08:54
huge amounts
00:08:55
and it's still cheaper for most
00:08:57
manufacturers
00:08:58
to use so-called virgin plastic than try
00:09:01
to recycle
00:09:02
[Music]
00:09:05
a u.s company thinks its technology
00:09:08
might be the answer
00:09:10
in a small town in indiana the founder
00:09:12
is inspecting a brand new plant
00:09:15
that's just weeks away from full
00:09:16
operation
00:09:18
they're actually from a local company
00:09:20
are they right across the highway
00:09:22
trim i spent 30 years in the energy
00:09:26
industry and what brought me to the
00:09:27
moment of wanting to found brightmark
00:09:29
was a realization
00:09:31
in the energy industry of the
00:09:33
environmental impact of what we do
00:09:36
what i'm feeling is an incredible sense
00:09:39
of excitement
00:09:40
because this is just the beginning of
00:09:42
really being able to solve a global
00:09:45
problem
00:09:46
and here we are right at the end of
00:09:48
construction
00:09:49
i'm really excited
00:09:53
this is claimed to be the largest
00:09:55
plastic renewal facility
00:09:57
in the world
00:10:01
what's different about this plant is
00:10:03
that it can take all types of plastics
00:10:05
mixed together that has traditionally
00:10:08
been either too difficult
00:10:10
or too expensive the plastic is shredded
00:10:14
and turned into millions of pellets
00:10:17
so this is a really dense material
00:10:20
that's ready to turn into
00:10:22
new plastics and other useful products
00:10:26
the pellets are fed into a huge chamber
00:10:28
called a pyrolyzer
00:10:31
pyrolysis heats plastic to more than 300
00:10:34
degrees
00:10:35
with no oxygen which means no toxins are
00:10:38
created
00:10:39
the extreme heat turns the plastic
00:10:41
molecules into gas
00:10:44
that is then called to create new
00:10:46
byproducts
00:10:48
it creates a vapor which is turned into
00:10:51
basically very pure form
00:10:53
of crude oil and a gas
00:10:56
like what we would get out of the ground
00:10:58
but we don't pull it out of the ground
00:11:01
the end product can be used for fuel or
00:11:04
wax
00:11:05
but is also ready to be turned back into
00:11:07
plastic right away
00:11:10
so yeah why don't we walk over there
00:11:11
real quick and grab you a delicious
00:11:13
handful of this
00:11:16
visiting from singapore is shakil
00:11:18
rachman the head of operations in asia
00:11:22
i come from a renewable energy
00:11:24
background
00:11:25
i have been developing renewable energy
00:11:27
plants for years
00:11:29
this is the next step circularity
00:11:32
taking something and returning it to
00:11:36
its original purpose i view this plant
00:11:38
as
00:11:39
very critical in the asia-pacific
00:11:42
project development process because
00:11:46
people from that region will want to
00:11:48
come
00:11:49
and see the plant see it operating
00:11:52
touch and feel so to speak
00:11:55
shaquille wants to see similar plants
00:11:57
across asia
00:11:58
the first might be ready by 2025.
00:12:03
we view the asian market as really the
00:12:05
market for growth
00:12:07
because that's where most of the people
00:12:08
are currently
00:12:10
the plastic that's in that region
00:12:13
they expect by 20 30
00:12:16
almost 140 million tons of plastic to be
00:12:19
consumed their per annum
00:12:21
which is huge plants like this
00:12:25
now have a chance at success because
00:12:28
manufacturers and policy makers
00:12:30
see the value that's been lost by
00:12:32
throwing away plastic
00:12:34
and the technology is reaching a large
00:12:37
enough scale
00:12:38
to make a difference so
00:12:41
with long-term viable economics
00:12:44
it absolutely makes circularity possible
00:12:47
so we don't think of sustainability as
00:12:51
just the environment or just economics
00:12:53
we think they work together
00:12:55
and that's how you solve these problems
00:12:57
[Music]
00:13:00
but despite technological advances
00:13:03
experts say the challenges with plastic
00:13:05
are still serious the problem of plastic
00:13:08
pollution goes beyond
00:13:10
beach cleanups it goes beyond recycling
00:13:13
we need to look at it from a system
00:13:14
level perspective
00:13:15
and really go to the source and think
00:13:17
about how do we design plastics
00:13:20
so that they never become waste
00:13:23
but what about replacing plastic all
00:13:26
together
00:13:27
that's the focus of other innovators in
00:13:29
asia
00:13:30
and beyond
00:13:36
[Music]
00:13:44
it's earth day the perfect time to try
00:13:48
something new to fight plastic waste and
00:13:50
change how business is done
00:14:04
david christian is trying to get
00:14:06
eateries in jakarta
00:14:08
to switch to non-plastic straws made
00:14:10
from rice
00:14:12
he's offering a month's supply for free
00:14:15
so indonesia consuming about 93 million
00:14:18
plastic straws every day
00:14:19
so that's uh when we put it together
00:14:22
that's equal to about
00:14:23
16 000 kilometers and that's actually
00:14:26
like the
00:14:28
line can be from jakarta to mexico
00:14:31
we are targeting this year about 5 000
00:14:34
uh
00:14:34
food stalls uh to be joining our
00:14:37
programs
00:14:38
and hopefully by then we can replace
00:14:40
about one million
00:14:41
uh plastic throws
00:14:45
so before i started ifuenko i was
00:14:48
actually living in canada for around
00:14:51
four years
00:14:51
and then when i arrived to jakarta i can
00:14:54
actually really feel
00:14:56
the difference i was quite shocked
00:14:58
because of the
00:14:59
environments the pollution here that we
00:15:01
have in jakarta
00:15:03
he's a serial entrepreneur now focused
00:15:06
on circularity
00:15:07
with projects across the country
00:15:13
in the thousand islands off the north
00:15:15
coast of java a small revolution is
00:15:18
taking place
00:15:19
david has hired seaweed farmers like
00:15:22
jamhoudin and abdul rasheed
00:15:24
to harvest the crop for him seaweed has
00:15:27
become one of the fastest growing
00:15:28
sectors of food production
00:15:30
in the world and this seaweed will be
00:15:33
eaten
00:15:33
too but with a twist
00:15:39
once it's harvested the seaweed is dried
00:15:42
it's then sent off to be turned into
00:15:44
tableware for restaurants
00:15:46
which can later be composted or eaten
00:15:55
back in jakarta the items are already in
00:15:57
use
00:15:58
cups made from the seaweed are edible
00:16:02
but kovid 19 has hit demand and david
00:16:05
knows there's a long road ahead for him
00:16:07
and his small
00:16:08
team
00:16:09
[Music]
00:16:11
evoenco is actually my first business
00:16:13
right so everything is a challenge for
00:16:15
me
00:16:15
but i think one of the biggest
00:16:17
challenges that i face now
00:16:18
is to educate people and raising
00:16:20
awareness of the environment
00:16:22
i don't think that i will ever stop like
00:16:25
doing what i'm doing right now
00:16:27
because i believe that what i'm doing is
00:16:29
a very important in the world
00:16:32
yet another of his ventures is providing
00:16:35
restaurants with biodegradable packaging
00:16:38
but some argue that single-use items
00:16:41
even if not made of plastic
00:16:43
are still a problem because of the sheer
00:16:45
scale of our throwaway culture
00:16:59
runs a singapore-based company that
00:17:01
thinks the real economic solution
00:17:04
lies in getting consumers to adopt
00:17:06
reusable
00:17:07
food containers this would avoid tons of
00:17:10
plastic and other waste
00:17:13
so the opportunity for packaging alone
00:17:16
is that if we can replace about 20
00:17:19
percent
00:17:20
of single-use packaging become reusable
00:17:22
packaging
00:17:23
then that market is about 10 billion
00:17:25
dollars for every usage that you use
00:17:27
backpack
00:17:28
we reduce 90 percent of co2 emission
00:17:30
compared to
00:17:31
normal use packaging so our reusable
00:17:34
items are
00:17:35
our box that can be used at least 500
00:17:38
times
00:17:39
in our reusable cups from stainless
00:17:42
steel can be
00:17:42
used at least 1 000 times
00:17:46
the selling point for restaurants is
00:17:48
that the containers
00:17:49
are free when i just joined backpack we
00:17:52
have about 70 locations
00:17:54
and after that after six months
00:17:58
we are now having more than double
00:18:01
the numbers
00:18:04
all the main food delivery services in
00:18:07
singapore
00:18:08
are now on board with the venture
00:18:11
consumers pay a monthly fee and can drop
00:18:13
off the containers
00:18:15
at any participating outlet
00:18:23
ling's move into the circular economy
00:18:26
came after a variety of jobs
00:18:28
including helping build golf courses in
00:18:30
vietnam
00:18:32
i started to see that the trees were
00:18:35
cutting off
00:18:37
to clear the sides to make the golf
00:18:39
courses
00:18:40
and at that moment i was aware
00:18:43
by how beautiful the sight wouldn't be
00:18:46
but then they were really sad to see the
00:18:48
tree was cut down
00:18:50
and then i told my boss like i don't
00:18:52
know if i can do it anymore
00:18:54
and he told me what ling if you don't do
00:18:56
it somebody else won't do it for her
00:18:58
and i told him but i don't want to be
00:19:00
part of
00:19:01
this broken system
00:19:03
[Music]
00:19:05
ling launched a reusable cup venture in
00:19:07
vietnam
00:19:08
but is now focusing on bear pack in
00:19:10
singapore
00:19:11
and beyond
00:19:14
[Music]
00:19:16
the startup is expanding overseas
00:19:18
starting with france
00:19:20
where ling's colleague nicola handles
00:19:22
the operation
00:19:24
after a few months it's already growing
00:19:26
faster than in singapore
00:19:29
most of my job is reaching out to two
00:19:31
vendors and
00:19:32
growing the network at home
00:19:36
what's
00:19:40
usually they accept right away because
00:19:42
they have they don't have anything to
00:19:44
risk
00:19:45
working with singapore i think is great
00:19:48
it's very insightful for
00:19:49
for the paris team it helps to grow our
00:19:52
service
00:19:52
already here and we're going faster
00:19:54
thanks to that
00:19:58
the french government is pressuring
00:20:00
delivery platforms to reduce waste
00:20:03
so the timing is right for a move
00:20:05
towards more circularity
00:20:08
i'm passionate about waste reduction so
00:20:10
i would not imagine myself working
00:20:12
in any other project i've worked in
00:20:15
charities in the past and
00:20:16
now after working in charities i'm
00:20:18
convinced that social enterprises are
00:20:21
the key
00:20:22
because you need to have to make money
00:20:24
in order to
00:20:25
to make your business that your impact
00:20:27
sustainable it's very promising for the
00:20:29
future
00:20:29
and and i think we can
00:20:33
increase this impact in the next few
00:20:35
months and years
00:20:36
we got from the vendors and the users
00:20:38
are really good they like it
00:20:40
nice and classy it fits the
00:20:43
french area my hope and my
00:20:46
vision on backpack is not only serving
00:20:49
the takeaway and food delivery it is our
00:20:52
starter
00:20:53
what i want to see is i don't want to
00:20:55
see a single use plastic floating around
00:20:58
the earth anymore
00:21:01
but while the packaging around food gets
00:21:03
a lot of attention
00:21:04
what about the food itself it turns out
00:21:08
food production
00:21:09
has a huge impact on the environment but
00:21:12
the circular economy
00:21:14
might provide an answer
00:21:22
[Music]
00:21:30
food it sustains us but the way we make
00:21:34
it
00:21:34
and waste it is causing problems on a
00:21:37
massive scale
00:21:39
and about one third of all food produced
00:21:42
never makes it to consumers
00:21:46
decomposing food in landfills gives off
00:21:48
methane
00:21:49
a powerful greenhouse gas in fact
00:21:52
if overall food wastage was a country it
00:21:55
would be responsible for the third
00:21:56
largest emissions
00:21:58
in the world
00:22:04
in new zealand's largest city some
00:22:07
people are trying to make a difference
00:22:10
at a supermarket staff are getting ready
00:22:12
to open for the day
00:22:17
henry witihira puts out new bread to
00:22:20
replace
00:22:20
older loaves bread is new zealand's most
00:22:24
wasted food product
00:22:26
with more than 20 million loaves thrown
00:22:28
away each year
00:22:31
one of us
00:22:34
but these loaves are going to take on a
00:22:36
new life
00:22:38
donald shepherd is taking the bread now
00:22:40
converted into croutons
00:22:42
an hour outside auckland
00:22:45
it's a beautiful day and i love this
00:22:47
drive up north
00:22:56
he's part of a new collective formed to
00:22:59
address the country's food waste
00:23:01
by creating new products for people to
00:23:03
eat and
00:23:04
drink so i grew up on a dairy farm here
00:23:07
in new zealand
00:23:08
and have been involved in food
00:23:10
production which historically has been
00:23:12
very linear
00:23:13
you grow it you produce it you sell it
00:23:15
and then some of it ends up in
00:23:17
in landfill or waste and then i had the
00:23:19
opportunity to travel overseas
00:23:21
and got really inspired by working with
00:23:23
organizations in the uk
00:23:25
that kind of opened my eyes up to the
00:23:27
global challenge that is
00:23:29
food going to waste
00:23:31
[Applause]
00:23:33
the destination is a brewery where the
00:23:36
bread is going to be turned into beer
00:23:39
the brewing process is just the same
00:23:41
process as standard brewing
00:23:43
however at citizen what we do is we
00:23:45
replace 25
00:23:47
of the malt with a processed crouton
00:23:49
bread
00:23:52
everyone that has tried it really like
00:23:54
the beer
00:23:55
they love the story behind it with it
00:23:56
being recycled and reducing
00:23:58
food to landfill and all the bars and
00:24:00
restaurants that sell it sell really
00:24:02
well
00:24:08
but the story doesn't end here the beer
00:24:11
making process
00:24:12
creates spent grey it would normally go
00:24:15
to landfill
00:24:16
or become animal feed
00:24:19
always makes me hungry but donald has
00:24:22
other plans for it we've just finished
00:24:26
the brew
00:24:26
so we've got a van full of spent grains
00:24:28
and the next step is to
00:24:30
mill that into a spent green flower
00:24:33
[Music]
00:24:42
andrew how are you i'm good thank you
00:24:44
how are you excellent
00:24:45
back in auckland donald delivers the
00:24:47
flower to a colleague at a bakery
00:24:49
where it will be turned into artisan
00:24:52
bread
00:24:53
it's been really interesting it's been a
00:24:54
difficult bread to make to be perfectly
00:24:55
honest to start with
00:24:56
but people have got their head around
00:24:58
the concept there are a lot of people
00:24:59
who really
00:25:00
take a shine to this bread and the fact
00:25:02
that we are doing that circular
00:25:03
economy type process it has been really
00:25:06
well received
00:25:14
oh fantastic there we go it smells
00:25:17
delicious oh look at that
00:25:21
so the beauty of this batch of citizen
00:25:22
baked bread is that whatever doesn't
00:25:24
sell tomorrow will go back up to the
00:25:25
brewery
00:25:26
to begin the beer making process again
00:25:28
so we go from bread
00:25:29
to beer to bread to beer to bread to
00:25:31
bear round and round we
00:25:33
[Music]
00:25:41
the go is now moving on to new zealand's
00:25:44
other highly wasted foods
00:25:46
fruit and vegetables to create sauces
00:25:49
and it's launching a drink from grape
00:25:51
skins left over in the country's sizable
00:25:53
wine industry
00:25:55
they'll be sold at the country's largest
00:25:57
supermarket chain
00:25:58
alongside the beer which is now back
00:26:01
where it began its journey
00:26:02
as bread so we're pretty excited
00:26:06
we see this as more than just new
00:26:07
zealand we really see the export
00:26:09
potential of this
00:26:11
and when we're starting to talk export
00:26:13
you're talking about scale
00:26:15
and if you're talking about scale that
00:26:16
means a serious impact
00:26:18
on reducing edible food that's currently
00:26:20
going to waste
00:26:27
in singapore a new startup is also
00:26:30
tapping into the sector known as
00:26:32
food rescue design is the one you don't
00:26:35
really want to sell anymore
00:26:36
former law student turned social
00:26:38
entrepreneur preston wong
00:26:40
is at a warehouse picking up food that's
00:26:42
about to expire
00:26:46
so you can see here we have today oh
00:26:50
like yogurts and not just yogurts but
00:26:53
also other dairy products like cheeses
00:26:56
the retrieved goods are packed for
00:26:58
resale
00:27:00
i think most people might have heard of
00:27:02
food waste
00:27:03
but they might not know the eventual
00:27:06
consequences of
00:27:07
it on singapore in 2019 show that
00:27:11
actually more than 700 million
00:27:14
kilograms of food had been wasted our
00:27:17
recycling rates are very low at
00:27:19
about 18 i actually
00:27:22
witnessed my family clearing out the
00:27:25
refrigerator of
00:27:26
expiring but still consumable food items
00:27:29
and i thought to myself whether it was
00:27:30
possible to redistribute them
00:27:32
away using a platform
00:27:36
preston and his co-founder kenneth
00:27:38
developed an e-commerce platform
00:27:40
that offers surplus food at a discounted
00:27:43
price
00:27:45
[Music]
00:27:47
you could arrange for delivery or a
00:27:49
pickup at our concept store
00:27:51
hi rick okay
00:27:54
yeah let me check on your order so our
00:27:57
target audience is actually not
00:27:59
beneficiaries or the needy
00:28:01
so treacher functions as a business
00:28:04
model as a business platform that will
00:28:07
redistribute
00:28:08
and connect businesses that have access
00:28:09
food to consumers
00:28:11
at a lower price preston does deliveries
00:28:15
in his spare time
00:28:16
it helps him meet customers and gather
00:28:19
feedback
00:28:20
not just like delivery of settlement so
00:28:22
you can actually get it delivered to you
00:28:24
we currently have over 25 000 users
00:28:28
in our community and we have over 30
00:28:32
businesses that are on board right now
00:28:35
when i was faced with a choice between
00:28:38
going down the normal path of perhaps a
00:28:41
professional
00:28:42
career in law accountancy or finance
00:28:46
i was also thinking that would i
00:28:48
actually
00:28:49
be better off creating a niche for
00:28:51
myself in
00:28:53
this area that perhaps nobody has
00:28:55
touched so i ventured into the
00:28:57
unventured into a
00:28:58
brand new territory i felt that that was
00:29:01
the path for me
00:29:03
[Music]
00:29:07
back in new zealand another entrepreneur
00:29:10
is tackling food
00:29:11
that can't be rescued for human use ash
00:29:14
andrew fisher runs a plant that turns
00:29:17
commercial food waste into animal feed
00:29:19
for the country's massive agricultural
00:29:22
sector
00:29:22
even if we built like an overhead gantry
00:29:24
we lift it lifted and lifted out of
00:29:26
components
00:29:27
new zealand is a food basket that
00:29:29
produces enough to feed
00:29:31
many times its population three percent
00:29:34
of waste
00:29:35
is normal for a factory and when you've
00:29:37
got the
00:29:38
scale of new zealand it's actually quite
00:29:40
a lot of food waste so our products
00:29:41
might be
00:29:42
starter run end of run oversized
00:29:45
undersized products
00:29:46
the salt hasn't come in the chocolate
00:29:48
stopped pouring on it
00:29:51
before this facility was set up the
00:29:53
surplus food was thrown away
00:29:56
new zealand has more than 100 landfills
00:29:59
and they're a cheap way to dispose of
00:30:01
surplus material
00:30:04
so the problem we've got is that 30 to
00:30:06
36
00:30:08
of what goes into a landfill is actually
00:30:10
food waste we're losing that opportunity
00:30:12
to landfill
00:30:13
and that's you know it's a huge economic
00:30:15
element that can be reused
00:30:19
the facility is a big achievement for a
00:30:22
former army engineer
00:30:23
[Music]
00:30:25
my engineering site's about
00:30:26
infrastructure clean water
00:30:29
doing things and i guess challenging
00:30:31
myself as the engineering mind i guess
00:30:34
how can you do things better the
00:30:37
pulverized biscuits
00:30:38
bread and other food is ready for the
00:30:41
next chapter
00:30:42
in this food story
00:30:48
at a dairy farm south of auckland the
00:30:50
cows know its feeding time
00:30:54
the feed from andrew's facility has been
00:30:56
mixed in with grass and maize
00:30:58
under the supervision of nutritionists
00:31:01
it currently accounts for only a small
00:31:03
percentage of animal feed in new zealand
00:31:06
but it has the potential to grow
00:31:10
i've been contract morgan on this farm
00:31:11
for 20 years and we've just added this
00:31:14
eco stock food into their diet
00:31:16
there's been a waiting list to get into
00:31:17
it it's very good feed high in energy
00:31:20
carbohydrate and at a good price
00:31:26
the supplement is high in energy which
00:31:29
produces more milk
00:31:30
so it'll be interesting to see over the
00:31:32
next couple of months whether the cows
00:31:33
increase
00:31:34
milk production
00:31:39
but andrew has much bigger ambitions
00:31:41
than animal feed and milk production
00:31:44
back at his processing plant he has a
00:31:46
new obsession
00:31:49
it's a pilot-sized anaerobic digester
00:31:53
it takes food and converts it into other
00:31:56
products
00:31:57
including energy and for andrew
00:32:00
it's the next logical step to harness
00:32:02
the massive streams of food waste
00:32:07
in this process biomass like food waste
00:32:10
goes into a sealed tank
00:32:12
it's fed into a digester or reactor
00:32:15
where microorganisms spend days breaking
00:32:18
it down
00:32:20
this gives off a methane rich biogas
00:32:22
that can generate heat and power
00:32:24
the leftover material is called
00:32:27
digestate
00:32:28
and is full of nutrients making it a
00:32:30
good fertilizer
00:32:32
everyone can talk about you know the big
00:32:34
picture and everything else but
00:32:35
everything starts that first step that
00:32:37
first commitment yeah puts a big smile
00:32:39
on my face
00:32:43
near the north island's geothermal
00:32:44
heartland the future is taking shape in
00:32:47
the countryside
00:32:49
andrew is at the site of the country's
00:32:51
first commercial scale
00:32:53
anaerobic digester he calls the venture
00:32:57
eco gas this is the foundation to the
00:33:01
tanks
00:33:01
this tank will be nearly 13 meters high
00:33:06
the plant will handle about 100 thousand
00:33:09
tons a year
00:33:10
representing up to ten percent of new
00:33:12
zealand's organic waste
00:33:15
it will provide heating and co2 for
00:33:17
local tomato greenhouses
00:33:19
fertilizer for local farms and biogas
00:33:23
that can be supplied to the natural gas
00:33:25
grid
00:33:27
for me this is 10 years in the uh the
00:33:29
process
00:33:30
12 months from now this can be complete
00:33:33
and actually
00:33:34
doing what uh the dream had been
00:33:38
the circular economy needs to have the
00:33:39
same depth or width
00:33:41
all the way around you need to create
00:33:43
something as big
00:33:45
to cope with the scale of what's
00:33:48
actually generated and i think people
00:33:50
understand
00:33:51
the scale of waste and the need for
00:33:53
infrastructure
00:33:54
the problem can only be solved by
00:33:56
putting in this appropriate sized
00:33:57
infrastructure
00:34:00
andrew already has a partner who
00:34:02
believes in his ambitious move into
00:34:04
circularity
00:34:05
yeah so the health and safety measures
00:34:06
you put in place here
00:34:09
at a waste facility back in auckland the
00:34:11
city council's head of waste is checking
00:34:13
on operations
00:34:17
mixed in with the general rubbish
00:34:19
heading for the landfill
00:34:20
is food attracting hungry scavengers
00:34:24
that's all about to change
00:34:27
we've been working to get a contract to
00:34:30
divert our food scraps for quite some
00:34:32
time
00:34:33
and now is the time to actually put that
00:34:35
into action and we've got
00:34:36
an amazing contract with eco gas to do
00:34:38
that uh working with andrew has been
00:34:40
really amazing
00:34:41
in my mind he's a bit of a legend his
00:34:43
passion for that area is just enormous
00:34:47
it's a 20-year deal starting in 2022
00:34:50
to divert food scraps from more than
00:34:53
half a million households
00:34:56
this is the future for auckland in terms
00:34:58
of food scraps so
00:34:59
every urban household will get one of
00:35:01
these you put your food scraps in
00:35:04
and you put it on the curbside and we
00:35:05
will come and collect it every week
00:35:07
this then goes to repair for eco-gas to
00:35:09
process
00:35:11
[Music]
00:35:13
back at the site andrew sees the plant
00:35:16
as the first of more than 20 nationwide
00:35:20
we've got an opportunity to actually
00:35:22
create local energy centres
00:35:24
local fertiliser production and local
00:35:26
employment
00:35:27
and the opportunity to turn into a good
00:35:29
business at scale
00:35:31
to give you know economic outcomes you
00:35:33
know it's why i'm here
00:35:39
similar technology is already well
00:35:41
established in singapore
00:35:43
some think it's the answer to food waste
00:35:46
others though are looking beyond
00:35:48
traditional food
00:35:50
there's an alternative that would avoid
00:35:53
waste
00:35:53
and unlock a market worth billions
00:36:00
[Music]
00:36:11
yeah okay so we're going to watch this
00:36:14
very short video
00:36:15
okay on food waste
00:36:18
[Music]
00:36:19
at a primary school in singapore the
00:36:22
future of food waste
00:36:23
might already be here
00:36:28
while some countries are just starting
00:36:30
down this road
00:36:32
the city has aerobic digesters of all
00:36:34
sizes in schools
00:36:36
food courts and businesses this small
00:36:39
one can handle
00:36:40
five kilograms of food a day
00:36:44
the food waste is digested by
00:36:47
microorganisms
00:36:48
within just 24 hours it decomposes
00:36:51
and is converted to dry organic
00:36:53
fertilizer
00:36:56
[Music]
00:36:57
the investor behind many of these
00:36:59
machines only got into waste management
00:37:02
two years ago at that time my instinct
00:37:06
told me
00:37:07
sustainability is the future i vision
00:37:10
an opportunity to create a sustainable
00:37:13
business
00:37:14
that will be last perpetual
00:37:17
[Music]
00:37:20
with san sanfran's background in digital
00:37:22
tracking it's no surprise he's adding
00:37:24
data trackers to his digesters like this
00:37:27
one
00:37:28
which can handle 500 kilograms of waste
00:37:30
a day
00:37:32
[Music]
00:37:34
load cells weigh the food and radio
00:37:37
frequency identification
00:37:38
tracks its journey from food stalls to
00:37:41
digester
00:37:43
i think we are the first in the industry
00:37:46
to equip the digester with a computer
00:37:49
system
00:37:50
and we also able to deploy some
00:37:53
ai technology analysis to analyze
00:37:57
the food waste generated on a money
00:38:00
basis
00:38:01
[Music]
00:38:03
it's a growing market because singapore
00:38:05
still incinerates
00:38:06
hundreds of thousands of tons of food
00:38:09
waste a year
00:38:11
so if we keep going on this just imagine
00:38:14
how many incinerator we have to build
00:38:18
in singapore and singapore we are only a
00:38:20
very tiny
00:38:21
city what's not tiny
00:38:25
is the company's largest digester which
00:38:28
can handle one
00:38:29
ton of waste daily and there are big
00:38:32
plans for the china market
00:38:34
and at home in singapore
00:38:37
i hope to see one day
00:38:40
our smart digester will be in
00:38:43
each hdb household is become part of
00:38:47
their kitchen appliances this will
00:38:49
happen when the day of this digester
00:38:52
course come down tremendously
00:38:56
but is dealing with surplus food the
00:38:58
only answer
00:39:00
can we use technology to produce as much
00:39:03
animal protein as we need
00:39:05
made to order without waste
00:39:11
in a singapore restaurant there's a
00:39:13
recent addition to the menu
00:39:16
this is chicken but not as we know it
00:39:20
it's cultivated meat it was launched to
00:39:24
fanfare
00:39:24
in late 2020 with singapore the first
00:39:27
country in the world
00:39:28
to approve its sale singapore is also
00:39:32
home
00:39:33
to startups creating plant-based
00:39:35
alternatives
00:39:36
but this chicken is real meat
00:39:38
[Music]
00:39:41
the exact technique is a secret but
00:39:44
cultivated meat
00:39:45
starts with cells from animal tissue
00:39:48
fat cells and muscle cells are separated
00:39:52
nutrients are added and one muscle cell
00:39:55
can divide to produce
00:39:56
billions of cells
00:39:59
eventually new cell strands form and
00:40:02
this tissue can then be layered back
00:40:04
together
00:40:05
to form meat
00:40:10
[Music]
00:40:13
the entrepreneur behind the new meat on
00:40:15
sale in singapore
00:40:17
is working remotely in hawaii away from
00:40:20
his san francisco headquarters
00:40:23
tetrick is convinced that the world's
00:40:26
trillion-dollar meat industry
00:40:28
is going to change cultivated meat
00:40:31
aligns with the circular economy
00:40:33
because you're only making what you want
00:40:34
you don't have to have all the waste
00:40:36
that normally comes from
00:40:37
industrialized animal production you
00:40:39
don't need to have the millions of acres
00:40:40
of land either you don't need to have
00:40:42
the billions of animals it's simply a
00:40:44
more efficient process
00:40:45
from the start to the end the benefits
00:40:47
are economic the benefits are
00:40:49
environmental and you know to some
00:40:51
extent the benefits are also moral
00:40:55
the need is pressing because the world's
00:40:58
appetite for meat is growing
00:41:00
along with a human population already
00:41:02
heading towards
00:41:03
8 billion what happens when we have 10
00:41:07
billion
00:41:07
do we eventually use 90 percent of the
00:41:09
habitable land of this one planet the
00:41:11
only one that we have
00:41:12
to plant swimming cord that feed the
00:41:14
animals wheat so
00:41:16
what happens if we don't change it is
00:41:18
instead of having a planet we have an
00:41:20
animal farm
00:41:24
josh's company is now supplying a second
00:41:27
singapore restaurant
00:41:28
a delivery platform is helping get the
00:41:30
new meat to consumers at home
00:41:33
it's still a pilot scheme but with big
00:41:35
plans ahead
00:41:36
it seems to be selling out so that's
00:41:38
good but people definitely like chicken
00:41:40
and rice the most
00:41:41
and i still haven't tried the chicken
00:41:43
and rice which is kind of frustrating
00:41:45
because you're not on the ground in
00:41:46
singapore you're in hawaii
00:41:48
singapore is one of the most
00:41:49
forward-thinking countries on the planet
00:41:52
they're thinking about a world 30 years
00:41:53
from now as opposed to
00:41:55
the world today so as singapore becomes
00:41:58
a hub for manufacturing
00:41:59
then we look to other markets we look to
00:42:02
indonesia
00:42:03
we look to china we look to japan we
00:42:06
can't ever forget in building out this
00:42:07
company that more meat is being consumed
00:42:09
in asia than anywhere else
00:42:12
high-tech farms are planned where
00:42:14
chicken and eventually
00:42:16
pork beef and seafood will be cultivated
00:42:18
in huge bioreactors
00:42:21
we can't just build them all tomorrow
00:42:23
but ultimately they will be the
00:42:25
the infrastructure for how the world
00:42:27
ends up consuming meat
00:42:29
this is infrastructure that's similar to
00:42:31
building the infrastructure out for the
00:42:33
electric car economy
00:42:34
it doesn't exist today we've got to
00:42:36
build it from scratch
00:42:38
and we all feel a real urgency of doing
00:42:40
it as fast as we can
00:42:42
today and not and not waiting
00:42:46
josh bought patents for the cultivated
00:42:48
meat developed by a dutch inventor
00:42:51
who didn't live to see the results
00:42:54
[Music]
00:42:56
but in the netherlands willem van elen's
00:42:59
daughter
00:43:00
is keeping his legacy alive
00:43:03
when josh tetrick called me what
00:43:05
actually happened is that george turkic
00:43:07
started
00:43:08
to explain cultivated me to me
00:43:11
and then i said hey wait a minute you're
00:43:14
not going to tell me what cultivated
00:43:15
meat is i'm going to tell you
00:43:18
my father was in a japanese prison of
00:43:20
war camp and had
00:43:22
been extremely hungry for years and
00:43:25
years and years so
00:43:26
food was top of his mind and after the
00:43:29
war he started
00:43:30
medical school in amsterdam and
00:43:33
he was brought into a lab space
00:43:36
where they were keeping a piece of
00:43:38
tissue alive all of his fellow students
00:43:41
saw this as something very interesting
00:43:43
medically interesting
00:43:45
whereas he immediately thought of it as
00:43:48
food
00:43:49
because he had been so hungry in
00:43:51
indonesia and in this prison of war camp
00:43:54
that he had a food complex as he called
00:43:56
it himself so
00:43:58
he would see everything as a possible
00:44:01
thing to eat hunger was an atrocity to
00:44:04
him
00:44:05
because he had seen what hunger does to
00:44:07
people
00:44:10
[Music]
00:44:13
ira is an informal advisor to josh's
00:44:15
company
00:44:16
but has her own mission
00:44:21
she's at a dairy farm outside amsterdam
00:44:25
the farmer leon monan is in the running
00:44:28
to host the first farm where cultivated
00:44:30
meat
00:44:31
will replace meat from animals
00:44:34
and while josh plans large new
00:44:37
facilities
00:44:38
ira wants dutch cultivated meat to adapt
00:44:41
existing infrastructure
00:44:44
on most farms you already have barns and
00:44:48
those are pretty big barns you could put
00:44:50
in
00:44:51
bioreactors in a barn instead of animals
00:44:57
and viruses done in scotland
00:45:04
ira is working on a pilot project and
00:45:06
hopes to see the first cultivated meat
00:45:08
farm
00:45:09
operational by 2025.
00:45:12
[Music]
00:45:15
i think it would make me a very happy
00:45:17
trooper to be driving around
00:45:19
the countryside in the future
00:45:23
we're growing cells instead of animals
00:45:26
that we bring to slaughter
00:45:28
and growing animals that are not very
00:45:31
good for our
00:45:32
environment my father would be right now
00:45:35
very happy about what is going on but
00:45:38
also frustrated because
00:45:39
of course for him it should be in
00:45:41
supermarkets all over the world already
00:45:43
but he would love somebody like josh he
00:45:46
would love to see what's happening in
00:45:47
singapore
00:45:49
and he would love seeing me talking to
00:45:52
farmers
00:45:52
and proving his idea that cultivated
00:45:56
meat
00:45:56
is perfect for farmers
00:46:07
so the circular economy is starting to
00:46:10
take shape
00:46:11
but how fast will change happen the
00:46:14
world has
00:46:15
finally realized that we have a really
00:46:18
big problem
00:46:20
we know we can't keep doing the same
00:46:22
things the same way
00:46:24
innovators will lead the way to
00:46:26
circularity
00:46:28
and so we need to change the way we make
00:46:30
money we need to change our business
00:46:32
models
00:46:32
if we can't make money out of it it's
00:46:34
going to be very difficult to protect
00:46:36
our planet
00:46:37
it's going to require a lot of work and
00:46:39
a lot of investment
00:46:40
so we have our work cut out for us and
00:46:44
it's not something that is left for a
00:46:46
futuristic future
00:46:47
no it's here it's now it's possible
00:46:50
circular economy
00:46:52
allows us to create a livable breathing
00:46:55
thriving planet without wasting it up
00:46:58
i truly believe that society can change
00:47:01
and evolve into a more circular
00:47:03
economy and my hope is that we can do it
00:47:07
quickly
00:47:08
and effectively
00:47:09
[Music]
00:47:47
you
