Resources

On this page you can find several resources to help you create a circular food economy scheme for your community. We have compiled the resources and divided them into the following categories:

  1. Project planning templates
  2. Programming code
  3. Educational activities (classroom and outdoor)
  4. References and credits

The project templates available here are hyperlinked to the section where they are presented on the website. If you choose to use any of the resources, please add a specific reference as below:

Queensland University of Technology (2022). How to build a digital circular food economy. https://research.qut.edu.au/circular-food-economy/

Project planning templates

These three templates illustrate the community engagement process. This project was about starting a Circular Food Economy in the master-planned community of Yarrabilba, a process that began with community engagement. The engagement process was significantly shaped by the fact that Yarrabilba is a “Lendlease community” and the presence of a developer may alter some of the engagement approaches. Nevertheless, we have created some templates that may provide insights on the engagement process also outside of a master-planned community. The “flowchart” provides an overview of the whole community engagement process, beginning with informing, involving and collaborating and concluding with hand-over and succession. The objectives at each of these stages, based on our specific experience at Yarrabilba, are presented in the a separate document on engagement objectives. Finally, we have created a collage of engagement activities in Yarrabilba captured in snapshots taken over the project lifetime. It provides a real time snapshot of the whole Circular food economy project.

At the start of the project an important activity was the “food survey” designed to understand the actual status of the Yarrabilba food system, the community needs and resources in relation to food and their openness to activities of composting and growing food.

Below you can find the questionnaire we used for the Yarrabilba food survey activity. The template has been adapted for this website to be more general and generic rather than specific to one community. The questionnaire provides a structure and a starting point but is also designed to be altered and adapted for specific needs and purposes. It is available in either PDF or Microsoft Word formats.

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Programming code

Mobile app and server

The source code for the mobile app and the server used for the Yarrabilba SSC project is freely available to use to create your own digital companion to a circular food economy. All references to YSSC have been removed, so the code and other resources can be used as a template to adapt to other communities.

As it uses the MIT Licence, the only conditions for using the code is that the license and copyright notice is preserved in any derivatives.

If you wish to clone or fork the repository, you can find the source code for the app and server on GitHub through the following links:

Alternatively, the following links provide a direct download of the source code from Dropbox:

Sensor example code

Substation33 has provided sample code for use with the various sensors connected to the Arduino in the sensor system, which is available below.

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Educational activities (classroom and outdoor)

Throughout the project we undertook a wide range of activities designed to increase understanding of a digitarl circular food economy, to increase practical and also general knowledge, understanding and experience. Throughout the project duration, we were often impacted by COVID restrictions which prevented us from holding all activities as we planned. Some activities planned but not held in the end included a farm excursion, to learn about fresh produce directly from a farmer’s perspective and also to learn about how, when and what to look for when it comes to harvest time. Also, a farm visit is a great opportunity to taste a wide variety of fresh produce. We also planned an excursion to a commercial composter to learn about large scale composting and soil health improvement.

Below is a list of various activities we undertook. For details, please click on the heading of each activity.

Yarrabilba Food Survey

Objective: Establish status quo of food system and understand food related perceptions in the community. Key objective is to understand the needs of the community.

Jamie Oliver Cooking Classes

Objective: Increase community skills to understand and prepare fresh food within the local context.

Learn about waste and hands-on waste sorting

Objective: Understand about different waste types and appropriate separation and disposal; hands-on practical activity.

Workshop to design a waste collection and composting system

Objective: Understanding of waste flows; understanding of benefits of diverse solutions; create ownership and personal engagement with new processes

Trying out different methods to start a compost process

Objective: Gain practical understanding of different composting methods, observe differences in type of materials, their addition, compost maintenance and end-product of the composting process.

Develop a routine for regular compost maintenance, and troubleshooting

Objective: learn how to manage, maintain and troubleshoot your own compost.

Soil knowledge, coring samples and testing

Objective: Understand soil quality, its composition, structure and suitability to grow food.

Cotton underwear test for soil microbial activity

Objective: Understand microbial activity in soils. Healthy soils have higher microbial activity and will decompose cotton underwear faster and more completely.

Grow in different soils

Objective: Understand soil quality by observing growth of fresh vegetables.

Build your own wicking bed

Objective: Learn how to build a wicking bed and understand how it works.

Herbarium exercise

Objective: Learn about plants and weed identification and harvest timing.

How to read a product label?

Objective: Understand basic product characteristics related to health and environment.

Science day (open garden day), and eating insect protein

Objective: Present the circular economy project to parents, teachers and interested community members.

Creating your own juice and cleaners

Objective: Learn how to use fresh fruit and make healthy and tasty drinks and snacks.

Sprouts growing

Objective: To observe the growing of food by growing and tasting fresh sprouts.

Urban foraging

Objective: To discover what food is available in your localised area and the nutritional properties of different plants.

Watch/discuss the contents of the app

Objective: Understanding of waste types and their origin; think about how to present useful instructions and other contents for mobile phone apps, understand how to improve the user experience of apps.

Workshop to disassemble hard-ware and recover e-waste for further use

Objective: Understanding of the e-waste problem and how to recover and re-use e-waste parts to build sensors or other devices; practical hands-on activity.

Excursion to e-waste social enterprise (Substation33, Queensland)

Objective: get a first-hand impression of the operation of an e-waste recycling shop, including more sophisticated equipment and processes.

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References and credits

Media credits

Below is the list of credits for the various media we have used throughout the website.

Media Credit
All photos without specific source attribution or reference link Circular Food Economy Project 2018-2022; photos taken by project members
Digital Circular Food Economy video and artwork 2021 Dr Sue Pillans, “Picture your ideas”
Dreamdrop Studio
Circular Food Economy Project, 2018-2022
Compost Warrior Logo Designed by Yarrabilba State Secondary College
Yarrabilba food survey information leaflet, 2018 Circular Food Economy Project, 2018-2022
Wicking beds diagram
“Subee” diagram		 By Sam Smith
By Sam Smith, based on a design by Substation 33
How To Build A Methane Sensor Tower (Part 1)

How To Build A Methane Sensor Tower – The Probe (Part 2)

How To Build A Methane Sensor Tower – Moisture And Water Level Sensors (Part 3)

 All videos produced by:

Circular Food Economy Project, 2018-2022
Substation 33
Dreamdrop Studios
Yarrabilba Circular Food Economy Project – App Animation V1 Food Agility CRC

 

References

The references that have been used throughout the website are listed below:

  • Arcadis (2019). National food waste baseline: Final assessment report. Department of the Environment, Australian Government.
  • Commonwealth of Australia (2017). National Food Waste Strategy: Halving Australia’s Food Waste by 2030.
  • Hall, K. D., Ayuketah, A., Brychta, R., Cai, H., Cassimatis, T., Chen, K. Y., . . . Zhou, M. (2019). Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. Cell Metabolism. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008
  • Jurgilevich, A., Birge, T., Kentala-Lehtonen, J., Korhonen-Kurki, K., Pietikäinen, J., Saikku, L., & Schösler, H. (2016). Transition towards circular economy in the food system. Sustainability (Switzerland), 8(1), 1-14.
  • Kirchherr, J., Reike, D., & Hekkert, M. (2017). Conceptualizing the circular economy: An analysis of 114 definitions. Resources, conservation and recycling, 127, 221-232.
  • National Health and Medical Research Council (2013). Australia Dietary Guidelines Summary. Canberra. Retrieved from https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/
  • Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), 987-992.
  • Sachs, J., Schmidt-Traub, G., Kroll, C., Lafortune, G., & Fuller, G. (2018). SDG Index and Dashboards Report. Retrieved from New York. Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN): http://www.sdgindex.org/reports/2018/
  • Springmann, M., Clark, M., Mason-D’Croz, D., Wiebe, K., Bodirsky, B. L., Lassaletta, L., . . . Willett, W. (2018). Options for keeping the food system within environmental limits. Nature, 562(7728), 519-525. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0594-0
  • Willett, W., Rockström, J., Loken, B., Springmann, M., Lang, T., Vermeulen, S., . . . Wood, A. (2019). Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet, 393(10170), 447-492.

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