The Hunter and Central Coast regions are facing a significant challenge with waste generation predicted to rise by 22.1%. This has created an increased demand for efficient resource recovery pathways as well as improved uptake of circular consumption solutions by the community. This project aims to address both challenges.

The key aim of the Hunter Circular Knowledge Hub is to address the inaccessibility of information and barriers to knowledge that contribute to the lack of uptake of circular services and recovery pathways in the region. The project will gather information on existing services and solutions available in the region and present this information in a user-friendly digital format that tailored specifically to meet the needs of each group. To effectively target each group this project will be delivered as two parallel streams.

Stream A: Council hub

Creating an exclusive access digital portal for council staff members hosted on the Hunter Circular website to enable circularity best practice for council-managed waste streams and facilitate knowledge sharing amongst councils to reduce burden on their individual resources, as well as to facilitate the collaborative evaluation of new recovery pathways and offtake providers in the region.

Aurecon and Edge Impact have been engaged to conduct research that will provide background for this project. This includes developing a tool for assessing the circularity of offtake providers and completion of an opportunities and gaps analysis of key council-managed waste streams. They will also collaborate with the Hunter JO to prepare and deliver and Solutions Codesign event in 2024 to engage stakeholders in the design and evaluation of new recovery opportunities in the Hunter region.

Stream B: Community hub

Development of a digital map tool to encourage the uptake of sharing, hiring, reuse and repair behaviours by connecting community members with circular solutions provided by businesses (B2C) and councils (C2C). The tool will address knowledge and accessibility barriers by centralising information, geolocating the proximity of services to users, and be searchable by multi filters. The tool will be hosted on the Hunter Circular website and embedded directly on council websites in the Hunter and Central Coast.

The Hunter Circular Knowledge Hub is a NSW Environment Protection Authority Waste and Sustainable Materials (WaSM) Strategy initiative, funded from the waste levy. It aims to contribute towards achieving WaSM targets of an 80% average recovery rate from all waste streams and a total waste reduction of 10% per person by 2030.