ADVANCES in sustainable waste management isn’t usually a topic that makes the headlines.
In general, we all support the thought of rubbish being turned into something useful rather than piling up in local landfills, but the nitty gritty of how that could happen is unlikely to hold our attention.
Perhaps that’s why a huge achievement by an Ipswich company didn’t gain the wide acclaim that it deserved.
News of Flinders Agriculture’s win in the WRIQ awards last October has only just begun to filter through the system.
The state’s premier industry association for waste management and resource recovery, WRIQ, established the awards to … “recognise those whose work behind the scenes are absolutely vital to achieving a sustainable future for Queensland”.
In announcing the award winners, WRIQ CEO, Alison Price, spoke of her pride in the exceptional accomplishments of the category winners and finalists … “highlighting their unwavering dedication and commitment to sustainability and excellence in the industry”.
First among equals in the line-up of winners was Ipswich-based Flinders Agriculture. The company’s Flinders Calcium Silicate, was judged the Best Recycled Product.
Flinders Calcium Silicate is a mineral mulch used to enhance soil fertility, improve plant resistance to diseases and pests and to increase photosynthesis and chlorophyll formation.
Ironically, the co-founders of Flinders Agriculture, Wendy and Rob Howe, developed the mineral mulch from the by-product of recycling fibre cement.
In an interview with industry magazine, Waste Resource Review, Mr Howe explained that everything they do on a day to day basis has been invented from scratch.
In a world first, their process diverts about 50,000 tonnes of fibre cement by-product from landfill annually.
“We can confidently wake up in the morning and say we have developed this market from scratch for a product that we built from scratch from a material that nobody else wanted,” he told the Waste Management Review.
“After 13 years of extensive research, including three years of desktop studies and field trials lasting up to five years, we have developed 11 products and are the only company worldwide recycling fibre cement by-product into a soil amendment.”
