The Socceroos have fought hard to reach the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar, but there's another Australian team also making a difference at the event.
South Australian company Peats Group, in partnership with three Qatari companies, will be using their invention known as the BiobiN to compost all the organic waste from the stadiums and other official venues throughout the World Cup.
Peats Group managing director Peter Wadewitz invented the BiobiN about 20 years ago, and it has been licensed for use across the world.
It is a metal in-vessel composting bin that uses an aeration system to breakdown and compost organic waste, including food.
The manager of international development for BiobiN at Peats Group Danny Mitroussidis loves soccer, so the opportunity to bring together his passion for the sport and composting was too good to pass up.
To make it possible, Peats Group teamed with Qatari business partners Agricompost and Agrico as well as Apex Waste Solutions and Management to come up with a way to compost the waste from the World Cup and then use that compost on projects that will benefit the Arab nation.
"It goes back to the farmers, municipalities, green projects and other major events as well as beautification projects across Qatar," Mr Mitroussidis said.
"People talk about environmental management and sustainability. They are processes, but the outcome is a circular economy."
The food vendors and the catering companies that won the contracts for the FIFA World Cup had to meet certain requirements and the BiobiN operators through their Qatari business partners were able to have input into that to ensure the waste was compostable.
"There's about 120 staff across the eight stadiums and the fan parks, we've had to train and orientate them, we have to meet all those accreditation and certification requirements as well."
There are 20 BiobiNs at the event and Mr Mitroussidis said from just the lead-up to the World Cup about 250 tonnes of organic waste was diverted from Lusail Stadium so much more waste was expected to be generated through the next few weeks.
"Thousands of tonnes will be diverted from just one event, only one client," Mr Mitroussidis said.
"So our whole scope of all this is to make the business scalable, and then use that as a template for other major events that we have here in South Australia or in Australia,"
