To take it back a step, I was very fortunate to come across a broad thinking leader at the university who wanted to build research connections. We met and talked, and he soon realised that I wanted to explore truly interdisciplinary work rather than the engineering you might expect given I was running large waste facilities.
I think we riffed off each other, and we came up with a scope for a discussion that encompassed as many faculties of the university as it could.
I don't remember the exact faculties represented, but I do remember turning up to the incredible meeting hall with a huge table and truly engaged people around it. My recollection was that there was representation from:
- Architecture
- Psychology
- Sociology
- Marketing
- Law
- Business
- Mechanical Engineering
The ideas that emerged were incredible. We could all, I think, see that each discipline had an incredible amount to add to revolutionise waste. It was a beautiful moment of clever minds seeing the possible.
Now I know that "revolution" is a tad overused, and I am as guilty as any, but you could truly get the sense of a vision that unearthed all sorts of incredible advances. A body of endeavour that would integrate disparate disciplines, bringing a holistic solution to the problem. This was the sort of opportunity that waste needs.
Unfortunately (and why do these stories so often end like this), the revolution never had a chance. It turned out that I was a little bit ahead of where my organisation wanted to be, and nobody else could catch the vision. Sure, some partnerships started (though they stopped after I left the organisation), and some good work was done. The revolution died a death because nobody could support it as a whole.
But, of course, it's not really dead. It lives on inside me, and hopefully also the others present. A vision once held is only reluctantly given up, especially if you refuse to accept the rut of mediocrity or the comfort of cynicism. I have been looking for a way to bring the vision to pass, and the path is steadily coming clear.
The path involves my thinking, these writings, my experimentation with new ventures. It involves those small but bright sparks of conversation that fly off my work, some of which are sure to find some dry tinder and from there grow to an inferno that will sweep the world.
Somehow, in some form, this particular opportunity will reform among many others. It will reform in a blaze of strikes, of sparks, of thoughts. It won't reform perfect, but rather hungry to be shaped by impatient minds. By clever minds who see a better direction even though they don't know the destination.
For I think a clever waste world is the best chance we have to show what we really can achieve.
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