EcoStock, a small South Auckland-based food recycling company is calling on an industry-wide approach to reducing food waste. Currently, EcoStock converts around 200 tonnes of vegetable scraps, packaged food, and bread into stock feed and bioenergy, every day. This wastage would otherwise go to landfill.
EcoStock’s managing director, Andrew Fisher, said, “We’re sort of there—we’re 20 years behind on infrastructure, and enthusiasm’s right up with everybody else, but at scale, we’ve not got the solutions there.” Fisher acknowledged that most companies are looking at ways in which they can improve their sustainable practices, but more is still required; and, unfortunately, Fisher believes that the food waste problem is unlikely to receive the funding it needs to make a serious positive impact—it’ll have to be self-funded. “We need some bigger steps to get back in equal parity with some of the other world countries.”
In terms of reducing plastic, Fisher believes that it would be more challenging to mitigate plastic than it would be food waste. “Tackle the other uses for it, and make it when people pick it up, they have the confidence that when they’re putting it somewhere in a bin—a recycling vessel—that it’s going to go to use and be used. Whether it be in roading or concreting: so it’s taken out of the market or out of the environment.” Fisher believes that making small and incremental changes would help to get people working together and actively engaging in relevant matters.
