Ngārie Scartozzi and her team with their award Photo / supplied
Ngāti Porou’s Ngārie Scartozzi has just led her firm to a National Fieldays Innovation Award for a product that cleans water on farms.
Her firm - eClean Envirotech won the Early-Stage Award at the National Fieldays, the largest agricultural event in the southern hemisphere.
The company partnered with an engineering firm to manufacture a low-cost water filtration system, and has already reached early commercial success in New Zealand.
Scartozzi previously worked at an Australian aquaculture company helping design filters for use in fish holding tanks.
“That role ignited my passion for water quality, control, and restoration of our global waterways,” Scartozzi says.
She says that for 15 years she had been thinking about the technology behind her bioreactors but it was only when she returned to New Zealand, and discovered water quality in the region had deteriorated, that she first conceptualised them in their current form.
Could help dairy farmers
eClean bioreactors use microbes (bacteria and other organisms) to remove nitrates, phosphates and other contaminants from water.
The bioreactors are intended for use in low-flow environments such as farm drainage channels, streams and lakes, and can potentially help dairy farmers comply with nutrient limits, allowing them to maintain herd numbers and farm more sustainably.
Scartozzi considers herself a kaitiaki, or a guardian of natural resources, and says her vision is to use both scientific research and mātauranga Māori to deliver technology to a global market.
eClean's 'Engineered Microbiome' technology is now showcased in several research projects targeting nitrates, E.coli and heavy metals using biological filtration.