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Bloom Cycle turns timber waste into trophies and wins clients by sending them one
In short
At Think Autism Melbourne in 2026, Zoe Atterbury described a business that employs a mostly neurodivergent team, sells to banks and festivals, and wins clients by sending them a trophy.
Read it instead, 3 minutesThe transcript
The story
Zoe Atterbury told the autistic entrepreneurs showcase at Think Autism Melbourne on 30 May 2026 that Bloom Cycle began with two problems she had seen and that seemed unrelated. Amazing timber was going to landfill, and neurodivergent people like her were being locked out of employment. She decided to address both at once. Bloom Cycle makes sustainable trophies from Australian timber waste, and it employs a team that is mostly neurodivergent or disabled.
Both problems show up in official figures. Australia generated 2.1 million tonnes of timber waste in the 2022 to 2023 financial year and recycled 30 per cent of it, down from 41 per cent in 2016 to 2017, according to Australia’s State of the Forests Report from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences. For autistic people, one part of the group she described, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported in October 2024 that in 2022 the unemployment rate among those of working age was 18.2 per cent, more than double the rate for people with disability and almost six times the rate for people without disability.
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Sources the story draws on
- Indicator 6.1e: Degree of recycling of forest products (2026) (opens in a new tab), Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), Australia's State of the Forests Report
- Autism in Australia, 2022 (opens in a new tab), Australian Bureau of Statistics
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