75 minutes + big-picture thinking
This week we’re exploring:
- How ideas grow from small to massive
- The scaling journey: Pilot → Replication → Integration → Systemic
- Barriers to scaling and how to overcome them
- Systemic change happening in Tasmania
- What systemic change actually looks like
The Scaling Journey
How do ideas go from one neighborhood to everywhere? In stages. Here’s the journey:
🧪 Stage 1: Pilot
Start small. One Repair Cafe in one neighborhood. One zero waste shop. Prove it works. Learn. Adjust.
Key: Build proof. Gather data. Make it repeatable.
📋 Stage 2: Replication
Copy the model to other places. Repair Cafes in every suburb. Zero waste shops spreading. More people involved. Network effects start happening.
Key: Make it easy to replicate. Have playbooks. Train people.
🔧 Stage 3: Integration
The idea becomes standard. Repair is expected, not surprising. Zero waste shopping is normal. Businesses adapt. Government supports it.
Key: Shift culture. Make it the default choice.
🏛️ Stage 4: Systemic Change
Policy changes. Infrastructure is built around it. Laws incentivize it. The economic system itself changes.
Key: Permanent change. Circular economy becomes how the system works.
Barriers to Scaling (& How to Fix Them)
💰 Barrier: Cost
Problem: Circular products often cost more upfront. Solution: Show total cost over time (repair costs less than replace). Get government subsidies. Build economy of scale.
⏱️ Barrier: Convenience
Problem: Circular choices take effort (bring containers, find repair cafe). Solution: Build infrastructure (more shops, pickup services). Make it easy.
🏪 Barrier: Market Demand
Problem: Not enough demand for circular products. Solution: Community demand. Government procurement (buy circular). Corporate commitments.
🌍 Barrier: Culture
Problem: “New” is valued. “Used” is cheap. Solution: Stories. Social proof. Visible change. Make circular cool.
🏗️ Barrier: Infrastructure
Problem: Systems built for linear (disposal, long shipping). Solution: Build circular infrastructure (collection systems, processing, local production).
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Buckminster Fuller
Systemic Change in Tasmania
Let’s look at what’s actually happening here in Tasmania:
In 2023 Tasmania released its first ever legislated state-wide waste strategy — a landmark moment for systemic change. The vision is simple and powerful: Tasmania: a place where nothing is wasted.
What the strategy commits to:
- Investing in infrastructure for reuse, repair, refurbishment and recycling
- Circular economy grants and levy rebates for businesses and communities
- Education and skills development across the state
- Sustainable procurement guidelines for government
- Better data on material flows and resource recovery across Tasmania
- Growing the resource recovery sector as an economic opportunity
Why this matters: Tasmania currently landfills one tonne of waste per person per year. That’s a loss of resources and economic opportunity. This strategy is the government acknowledging that and committing to change it — systemically, not just at the individual level.
🔗 Read the full strategy 🔗 Waste and Resource Recovery Board
When government makes circular economy policy, individual and community action gets easier. That’s what systemic change looks like.
Tasmania’s container deposit scheme — Recycle Rewards — is a perfect example of systemic change in action. One policy decision changed the economics of plastic and container waste across the entire state overnight.
What changed: Before May 2025 — drink containers went to landfill or recycling bins with mixed results. After May 2025 — every eligible container is worth 10 cents. The financial incentive changes behaviour at scale without requiring anyone to be convinced of the environmental case.
The numbers:
- 49 refund points across Tasmania
- Over 100 reverse vending machines statewide
- 10 cents per eligible container returned
- Tasmania was the last Australian state to join — completing a national network
Why it’s systemic: This isn’t a community initiative or an individual choice — it’s infrastructure. The government built a system that makes the circular choice the financially rational choice. That’s what systemic change does.
🔗 nre.tas.gov.au/environment/recycle-rewards
One policy. Every drink container in Tasmania. That’s the power of systemic change.
FOGO — Food Organics and Garden Organics — is one of the most significant pieces of circular economy infrastructure being built in Tasmania right now. Instead of food scraps rotting in landfill and creating methane, they become compost — a valuable resource returned to the land.
What’s been built:
- A $32 million organic waste processing facility in Latrobe, north-west Tasmania — capable of processing 50,000 tonnes of organic waste per year
- Jointly funded by state and federal governments
- FOGO kerbside collection rolling out across multiple councils — green-lidded bins collected and taken to the facility
Where FOGO is available:
- North West — Devonport, Burnie, Central Coast, Latrobe, Kentish, Waratah-Wynyard
- Brighton and Sorell — rolling out now
- More councils expected to follow
Why it’s systemic: No individual action could achieve this. It required government investment, infrastructure construction, council coordination and community behaviour change — all at once. That’s systemic change.
🔗 rethinkwaste.com.au — check what’s available in your council area
A $32 million composting facility turning 50,000 tonnes of food waste into soil every year. Individual action scaled up by government investment.
Systemic change doesn’t just happen through government policy — it happens when businesses change how they operate. ReCFIT is Tasmania’s main vehicle for driving circular economy thinking into the business sector.
What ReCFIT does:
- Funds the Business Resource Efficiency Program — helping Tasmanian businesses reduce waste, improve resource efficiency and adopt circular business models
- Supports circular economy research and development
- Works with the Office of the Coordinator-General on a circular economy pathway for Tasmania — identifying investment opportunities and aligning regional resources to circular business models
- Funds grants for innovative circular economy initiatives
Why this matters: Individual consumers can only do so much. When businesses change their models — how they source, make, sell and recover products — the whole system shifts. ReCFIT is the mechanism that makes that happen in Tasmania.
Current opportunities: ReCFIT regularly opens grant rounds for circular economy projects. If you’re involved in a community organisation or business with a circular economy idea, this is worth watching.
🔗 recfit.tas.gov.au 🔗 Business Resource Efficiency Program
Grants, programs, policy — ReCFIT is where circular economy ambition meets Tasmanian government support.
⚡ Try This in the Next Week
Sketch a VISION for systemic change in Tasmania.
Imagine it’s 2035. Circular economy is normal. What does that look like?
- What policy changes happened?
- What infrastructure got built?
- How do people shop, work, live differently?
- What’s your role in getting there?
Write it or draw it. Make it vivid. This vision is your north star for week 6.
💭 Have a Think
- Which barrier is biggest for you? How could you help overcome it?
- Which Tasmanian systemic change example surprises you most?
- What’s one policy change you’d want to see in Tasmania?
Systemic change doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because people envision it, demand it, and build it.
💬 Questions or Feedback?
Got a question about this week’s content? Something that didn’t make sense, or something that sparked an idea? We’d love to hear from you — this course gets better every time someone tells us what’s working and what isn’t.
📖 Key Terms This Week
- Systems Thinking — seeing the whole picture, not just your bit
- Policy — the rules that either make the circular economy easier or harder to achieve
- Circular Design — making products from the start so they don’t become rubbish
- Supply Chain — all the steps between a product being made and landing in your hands
- Behaviour Change — small shifts add up — what you buy, fix, share or compost is part of a bigger story
Week 5 done! 🎉Next: Week 6 (Your Action Plan) →