For decades, waste has been treated as a cost of doing business — a compliance expense, a disposal line item, a problem to move off-site and out of sight.

But as materials become more expensive, environmental regulation tightens, and the global race toward decarbonisation accelerates, that model no longer holds.

At Graymark, we believe waste is not a cost — it’s an untapped resource.

Across our pilot programs, we’re proving that waste recovery can create measurable commercial value, and that circular systems are not just environmentally necessary — they’re economically inevitable.

From Cost Centre to Profit Centre

Graymark’s pilot network — beginning with Project Regen’s CCA chemical recovery and expanding into glycol reclamation and gas recovery — is producing data that challenges long-held assumptions about the cost of sustainability.

Early results show cost reductions of up to 40% when replacing conventional disposal with on-site or regional recovery systems.

Beyond cost savings, these systems create secondary value streams through recovered materials such as purified glycols, recyclable metals, reusable timber treatment compounds, and residual fuels.

Each recovered product displaces the need for virgin imports, reduces hazardous storage, and generates new market opportunities for regional processors and suppliers.

For many primary industries, the shift to circular recovery could mean the difference between compliance-driven waste management and revenue-positive resource recovery.

What is Circular Industry?

Circular industry is an economic and engineering model that keeps materials in use for as long as possible.

Instead of following the traditional “take–make–dispose” pattern, circular systems are designed to recover, refine, and reuse waste from production — turning by-products into valuable inputs for the next cycle of manufacturing.

In simple terms:

Waste from one process becomes the raw material for another.

For heavy industry and manufacturing, this means fewer imports, less waste to landfill, and cleaner, more efficient production.

For New Zealand, it means building a self-sustaining industrial ecosystem that can grow without increasing its environmental footprint.

Supporting New Zealand’s Primary Industries

New Zealand’s primary industries — including timber, agriculture, and energy — form the backbone of our economy. They employ hundreds of thousands of people and generate billions in export revenue each year.

But these industries also produce complex waste streams: chemicals, residues, gases, and organic by-products that are difficult and costly to manage under current systems.

Graymark’s mission is to help these industries stay competitive by turning waste into value — creating circular supply chains that reduce cost, lower carbon, and increase resource independence.

By recovering usable materials locally, we strengthen domestic supply, reduce environmental impact, and position New Zealand as a leader in circular primary production — a model that’s clean, profitable, and exportable.

Circular Industry in Practice

Circularity isn’t a slogan. It’s a design principle — one that treats waste as infrastructure.

By integrating recovery technology directly into existing industrial processes, we shorten the distance between waste generation and reuse.

Graymark’s approach is modular and scalable:

• Regen reclaims chemicals and metals from timber treatment and industrial waste.

• Aether converts organic and carbon-rich waste into sustainable fuels and feedstocks.

• Origin manages the logistics and distribution of recovered materials.

• Arc captures the residual fraction — energy from what cannot be recovered.

Together, these systems create an industrial ecosystem where every output becomes a potential input. The result is reduced emissions, lower operating costs, and new revenue streams — all without compromising production.

Circularity only scales when it pays to participate. That’s why we’re engineering business models and technology that make recovery commercially inevitable.

The Economics of the Circular Transition

The shift to circular industry has economic implications far beyond waste management.

It touches supply chains, export dependencies, and regional employment.

Consider New Zealand’s reliance on imported chemicals, fuels, and feedstocks — many of which can now be recovered domestically through advanced separation, bio-conversion, and energy reclamation.

That’s capital staying within local economies, and risk removed from global volatility.

By designing for recovery, industries can:

• Reduce disposal costs and landfill liability

• Create local supply chains for recovered resources

• Capture and monetise carbon reductions

• Enhance resilience to material shortages and global disruptions

This isn’t just environmental reform — it’s industrial strategy.

Circular industry is the next competitive advantage for producers that move early.

Building the Infrastructure for a Circular Economy

Graymark’s work is focused on one thing: building the technology backbone for circular industry.

Our pilots in chemical, fuel, and energy recovery are designed not as isolated projects, but as connected systems that redefine how waste moves through the economy.

Each tonne of recovered material is both an environmental win and an economic one.

Each closed loop represents an opportunity for industry to grow stronger while treading lighter.

As New Zealand looks to the future of its primary sectors — timber, agriculture, energy, and manufacturing — the case for circular industry has never been clearer: profit and sustainability can now operate on the same system.