Enterprises like the following examples in our Nourishment Economies Coalition support ecology, reduce pollution, and create economy on the “waste recycling” side of regenerative nutrient-nutrition-nourishment cycles. They circulate nutrients back into productive use by people and biology in land or foods at large scale:
- Food processing industry: Multiform Harvest (USA) crystalizes phosphorus from leftover potato skins at food processing factories, reducing their waste discharge while creating a local source of phosphorus fertilizers. This lowers costs and reduces external fertilizer purchases. http://www.multiformharvest.com/
- Restaurants and animal feed: Bold Nutrition (Nigeria) produces protein-rich feed for fish farms, by growing insect larvae on leftover food wastes from a network of local restaurants, to whom they then sell the fish raised. https://boldnutritiondotco.wordpress.com/
- Urban sanitation and compost: SOIL (Haiti) converts sanitation waste from over 6500 people, and has now produced over 510 tons of agricultural grade compost while providing clean sanitation systems for people. https://www.oursoil.org/
- Household waste to large farms: Garbage to Gardens (USA) collects kitchen waste from over 10000 homes, composts it at a large central facility (in partnership with a farm), and re-sells it for home gardeners, large farms, and production of other value-added products. http://nourishn.com/2018/09/17/garbage-to-garden-a-nourishment-cycle-enterprise/
- Financing composting infrastructure: This article cites over US$21 million in organic composting infrastructure investments in one place, and describes the volume and type produced by several large-scale composting operations: https://www.biocycle.net/2020/01/14/financing-composting-infrastructure-development
Feel free to add additional examples, questions, and information in the comment box below.