Zero waste cities the dream of Anja comes true
[Applause]
hi
i was a very disconnected city girl
so sad to say that i
truly believed that milk was developed
in these milk packs
that vegetables were grown in the
freezers
of these large supermarkets i believed
that apples were being made on these
plastic plates so we could easily take
them home i was fascinated by these
plates
i didn’t care about the apples that
actually made me grow
so as a student i knew there was more to
be discovered and i started traveling
around the world
and it was only when i set foot at this
one particular farm
there was growing things in a biodynamic
organic way that i understood i knew
i entered and what i saw there
was a connected image i felt
insects buzzing around i felt
all kinds of trees growing
and making the food that i was so
curious about
i was actually walking around and i saw
that there was no waste whatsoever
because
everything was put back on that land
either to feed animals or to
use as fencing or
to put back on the soils to make them
better again to grow the food again
i was in disbelief i was speechless
because that was what i was looking for
i was connected and i was just part of
that whole ecosystem
when i was back home in this city town
i lost that connection
and it would take me ten years
to discover that connection again and it
would
take me ten years to realize
that these farms principle will be my
guiding lines
so when i was back i also thought okay
kids have to
realize this and they cannot go thinking
that milk is developed in a milk pack
so i started developing all kinds of
educational programs
to teach kids what to do with these
resources
through gamified experiences i created
programs so kids could reuse their
materials again in schools
they were super excited 50 schools
joined
but what happened was actually they got
frustrated
because their amazing ideas and their
hopes
and the resources they envisioned for
that wonderful furniture piece
was thrown in that garbage
so i thought i have to quit this and
start develop
garbage bins because if we could develop
very smart very usable made from
recycled material
garbage bins we could help people
store their materials at homes so
no waste has to be made
lots of these bins were sold we got
people excited all over the place
but also i realized that this is not
the way to go
i discovered that when i was contacted
by an
uh diaper cycler who said guys you have
wonderful bins
let’s start collecting diapers to be
recycled again
into all kinds of materials they want to
use
organics from there from the poop they
wanted to
get plastics out of them they wanted to
get you use the paper again
it sounded fantastic we wanted to join
we started collecting the materials
and we started bringing them
clean diapers again
it worked out very nicely as a lot of
people wanted to join
until i got a phone call from the
municipality
telling me that we have to stop this
experiment if we didn’t want to be sued
because actually we were taking their
property their waste materials
away from them
i was speechless
and we had to stop
i was happy that i didn’t have to smell
that poop again
but i was also very frustrated
it took me quite some time to realize
actually what happened the last years
and i learned a lot of things i learned
that we have to keep our hands off the
municipality waste
i learned that still 70 percent to this
date
of all municipality ways in cities is
being wasted
being incinerated burned
and i also learned that there are so
many
incredible initiatives who want to
have these organic materials that we are
just waste
to reuse it again and what i
also realized is that it’s not only
about this waste system
but it’s in round it’s a circle
materials come from somewhere
i realized that we are importing
oils from brazil compass from poland
we are importing plastics from oils made
from the
middle east 400
000 of tons of materials
are coming in in the city in the
netherlands
180 000 tons of those materials are
being wasted
it’s incredible and i knew we needed to
do something with this
so as i was home i started to realize
that everything is connected i started
seeing these amazing pictures
of materials being collected
peels oranges
coffee grinds beer waste everything
could be
collected in the city
put in a hubs stored in hubs
and then reused again by local
initiatives to bring
products back again it was possible
to make every spot in the city that’s
not being used
like rooftops like empty parking lots
and bring those back into our city
as city farms
i thought this could work but i knew i
couldn’t pull this off by myself
i needed a strong team that could help
me so
i contacted boss von abell who lived
around the corner
but who was busy changing another
wasteful system
an unfair system of electronics but
while he was setting up his company the
fair phone
he was doing something with resources
worldwide
so i knew that he would be
engaged in changing a wasteful system in
our backyard
he played hard to get it took me months
to get him on board but eventually
we did sign our incorporation of our
company the clique
and other team members wanted to join
who actually knew stuff about
creating a mushroom farm doing city
logistics
marketing law
and together we started our new
adventure
we started piloting with 10 restaurants
we needed to engage with a very cool
program
to separate their waste streams at the
source
they were eager to join one didn’t have
any space for recycling materials
so they converted their piano
into an organic collector
so after we are running these
experiments more and more companies
wanted to join from big corporates
to shopping malls who believed that they
could
spend their money on a better
circular model than the one that just
wastes their resources
and after a few months we saw an
increase in the quality and the quantity
we were collecting
we saw that we actually collected
amazing value out of these organics
and we needed to start a physical hub
right here in the city
we started taking these materials into
our city hub
and we needed initiatives who could use
them to make
products again we got in touch with a
lot a lot of initiatives
some needed the peels to squeeze the
oils out of them
so they can be transformed into ethereal
oils to be used for soaps again
others wanted the coffee grinds to
create mushrooms from
or to make bioplastics others again
wanted to spend beer grain like bakers
to make delicious breads and others
again like beer brewers wanted the
leftover
bread
to make delicious beers
the compost could be made from the
organic
leftovers that were
in abundance so we could grow
our local teas that we consume
so that we can grow vegetables that we
eat
right now bus was supposed to be here
with me
as you heard but could make it today
he is here with us almost live to give
you a glimpse of what’s going on on our
local farm
this is going on on our local farm
boss are you there hey guys i’m boss
and while anya is doing all the hard
work i’m having all the fun here
because i’m standing here next to our
composting machine
to be honest it smells a bit like
here which is
kind of logical because it’s we’re
digesting stuff here
and the great thing is we put all our
organics here which we can’t use for
other purposes but we also mix it
with the cardboards we get from our
customers so
this is where what you could say the
magic happens
um so let me give you a bit of a tour as
well on
where we are so this is the hub
this is our playground this is where we
make cool stuff it’s still
you know at the start but we believe
that we can really build something
super beautiful out of this and
we’re already started so i’ll give you a
bit of insight here
what we got from our customers because
here it smells actually quite nice
because we have all these oranges and
orange juice that we get from our
customers
which we cool in this container
and that’s you know that’s the key you
have to keep things cool when you don’t
want it to
uh start growing by itself uh
besides that we have our vehicles of
course
which we use to collect all this stuff
so this is one of the one of the
vehicles we use especially designed to
be able to
separate all the waste and make sure
that nothing gets
wasted and we can use it as resources
um yeah i think i think one thing i’d
really like to show you
is that with the compost we make
behind me you see all this green nice
stuff
and that is actually stuff that grows on
the compost that we’ve
created ourselves with the machine and
we’re growing tea here so so you see
here
here this beautiful
flowers and everything we’re going to
harvest that and make sure that
that tea gets made from it with our
partner and this
um this tea we will you know we will be
able to sell back
to the restaurants as well so they have
to grown on their own
uh on their own uh composting material
which is pretty cool i think
so last thing i want to show you this
stuff here
it’s anya actually who put that here
it’s
you know it’s vegetables and vegetables
we’re growing for ourselves
and i got really excited about it as
well i hope our kids actually like it as
well because they’re probably eating for
weeks already all kinds of vegetables
from our own
yard but i think it’s a good start and
of course we will grow this bigger and
bigger we have a lot space here
as you see a lot of space where you can
still expand
and make beautiful stuff as well so good
luck on stage dania and
see you later
so thanks boss
um so while our
well we just started developing this
first
local farm our ambitions are high
we want to collect 100 000
kilos of materials each month
we want to expand to five cities in the
netherlands in the coming year
and our goal is to inspire and to
co-found
these local hubs these farms everywhere
around the world
and it might sound like a stretch for
just one company to accomplish
but actually i have to say that
this all comes together and i’m so proud
of that
because so many companies join in
so many individuals join in and say we
want a different future we want
different lives
for both our cities and for our families
and kids
we don’t want to be dependent on these
ego driven
systems and we want to create
eco-interdependent ones
who trust each other and who feel this
connection
and i also want to say that i want
a better future for my twin girls
i want them to grow up in a city
where they know that apples are not
grown on these plates
where they know that the apples come
right from their backyard and i want to
invite you to keep enjoying keep eating
keep drinking
and keep celebrating city life
but to also be aware that when you are
consuming you’re also producing valuable
resources
so when you’re a supermarket when you
are at work
when you’re at schools engage them and
tell them
that their organics can be reused over
and over
again thank you