Ten years ago, Lynne Loo was an academic scientist in Australia studying how waste could be repurposed. What began as a research project soon evolved into something larger: a practical blueprint for extracting commercial value from materials most businesses would send to landfill.
Today, Loo is helping startup founders turn that idea into reality. As a waste broker, she connects emerging businesses with markets for by-products and discarded materials, giving viable new ventures a route from laboratory concept to commercial scale.
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Australia’s Waste Problem Creates A Business Opportunity
Australia generates 76 million tonnes of waste each year, according to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. Much of it still ends up in landfill. That scale of waste presents an environmental challenge, but it also opens a market for entrepreneurs capable of rethinking what discarded materials can become.
Across industries, innovators are finding that waste is not only a disposal problem. In the right hands, it can be a feedstock, a raw material, and in some cases, a high-value product in its own right.
Turning Food Waste Into Cellulose Products
One example comes from Matt Barber, who has built a home laboratory focused on extracting cellulose from food waste. From that material, he is developing paper, leather and wood alternatives, with potential applications in bioplastics as well.
“So, what I get is pure cellulose that comes out and then from there, I process that into other paper, leather or wood products. But it could be turned into a bioplastic. It can be turned into any uses. So you can, instead of growing a tree, which takes 75 years, you can grow this in a week,” Barber explained.
For Barber, the venture fits alongside his day job, but access to the right market is critical. That is where Loo’s work becomes essential. “You have a start up and you don’t know what to do with it and she [Loo] helps you find a market for it,” he said.
From Rubbish To Vinegar, Biochar And Oil
At a waste facility in Collie, Western Australia, Renergi is pursuing a more industrial version of the same principle. Using thermal conversion technology, the company is transforming rubbish into products including vinegar, biochar and oil.
“We can process just under about 30,000 tonnes of biomass waste per year and 4,000 tonnes per annum of the town’s municipal solar waste,” said Deejay Parker of Renergi.
More than 70% of the material is recovered and converted into new outputs. The biochar is already being used on fruit farms and at a winery across Southern Western Australia, demonstrating how waste recovery can create practical value for regional agriculture.
The project has received funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency as part of broader efforts to expand renewable technologies into regional communities. At full scale, it is expected to become one of the country’s largest producers.
Why Circular Thinking Is Winning Traction
Loo says the momentum matters as much as the technology. “I think it’s important for people to see that it’s possible because there are so many naysayers,” she said.
That is the central lesson of Australia’s growing waste innovation sector: with the right science, business model and market access, discarded materials can become industrial inputs, farm products and new revenue streams. In a resource-constrained economy, the smartest waste strategy may be to stop seeing waste as the end of the line.
Instead, it can be the beginning of a new value chain.
