The Future of Mining is in Your Waste Bin
We Australians have had a long love affair with our mines - gold, iron ore, coal - but we all know it’s a love that cannot last forever. There are pressures on the mining industry from all sides - financial, regulatory, environmental, political, not to mention that one day, much of it will simply run out.
While Australia owes much of its recovery from the last recession 30 years ago to the mining boom, our recovery from the current global recession can’t rely on the mines in the same way.
Of course the mining of hard commodities isn’t going to stop anytime soon, but with an eye on the future, Australia needs to turn its focus onto soft commodities, specifically waste.
So here’s the problem with waste; Australians throw away around 3.1 million tonnes of food each year. When rotting food ends up in landfill it turns into methane, a greenhouse gas that is particularly damaging to the environment and far more potent than carbon dioxide.
But what if we could harness the energy of all that waste and turn it into valuable power? What if we could process that waste using a safe, innovative technology and turn it into organic fertilizer? What if the by-product of that process helped farmers to rebuild and maintain healthy soils?
An Australian company based on the NSW northern rivers is doing just that. UAG Bio Nutrients has developed a process that takes organic waste, produces clean energy and CO2, then processes the by-product into organic fertiliser which can be used to accelerate healthy growth in protected cropping.
For agriculture to work we need to constantly rebuild and regenerate our soils in a sustainable manner and that’s where organic waste comes in. So, for example, instead of taking our food waste to landfill, let’s re-process it to rebuild and maintain healthy soils, naturally and sustainably.
The time to invest in soft commodities has arrived. Unlike hard commodities which, once they’re extracted, are gone forever, soft commodities can be mined again and again every year. Instead of tearing the land apart, soft commodity mining replenishes it as part of the process, bringing life back to our agricultural heartland. This builds natural capital for a sustainable future.
For more information about using UAG Bio Nutrients’ systems for processing waste and utilising its by-products, or to learn more about investment opportunities, please contact me at john@uag-australia.com.au.
John Barraclough
https://www.uagbionutrients.com/
