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QLPA CatchUp!

Issue 5 June/July 2008

Welcome to the fifth issue of the QLPA CatchUp!

In this issue

Welcome to our newest member groups
The Dreaming Festival
Healthy Waterways Awards
Pre planning planning and planning meeting
The QLPA planning meeting is rescheduled
Global Litter News Stories

Welcome to our new members!

QAST

QASTThe Queensland Association of School Tuckshops is an active non-government organisation dedicated to the promotion and support of school communities in their endeavours to offer nutritious, hygienic & economically viable food services. Over 750 schools in Qld are members of QAST.

The QLPA has also become an associate member of QAST (www.qast.org.au).

Eumundi & District Historical Association

Eumundi & District Historical AssociationThe Eumundi Market is one of Australia's leading tourist attractions and is held every Saturday and Wednesday of the year come rain, hail or shine. Established in 1979 it is situated in the heart of the historic town of Eumundi and is run by The Eumundi & District Historical Association Inc.

The Eumundi markets are introducing Public Place Recycling and compost bins to the site. QLPA will be working with the markets staff, conducting waste audits, scoping the site for smoking areas and possibly introduce some edu-tainment with the Butt Hunters and The Waste mob (more on them later). We are looking at the possibility of launching the Sustainable Events Guide and sustainable Eumundi Markets at the wearable art and body painting competition to be held on the 21 September at the Eumundi Markets (http://www.eumundimarkets.com.au/).

QLPA and EPA join forces at Dreaming Festival

This year's The Dreaming Festival saw the introduction of waste and recycling bin caps and introduction of designated smoking areas.

The site looked fantastic with its red and yellow bin caps and signage. Visual inspections during the event showed a great recovery rate with minimal contamination. We look forward to seeing the figures from Wanless.

EPA assisting The Dreaming Festival to Do the Right Thing

Dreaming FestivalThe Dreaming Festival, held at Woodford from 7 to 9 June, was the first major event to trial the Environmental Protection Agency's public place recycling initiative.

The EPA worked with the Queensland Folk Federation and the Packaging Stewardship Forum to ensure recycling infrastructure was provided throughout the festival site and that exhibitors and patrons were aware of the availability and benefits of recycling.

Under the banner of "Do the Right thing, Use the Right bin", promotional materials, signs and bins throughout the festival village and camping grounds encouraged everyone at the event to recycle. Exhibitors and patrons alike took advantage of recycling infrastructure provided at the event and feedback has been positive.

An update will be provided in the next QPLA newsletter, when recycling and waste data from The Dreaming Festival is available.

For further information on public place recycling or if you know of a future event in which you would like to provide public place recycling, please contact

Tamara Miller, Project Coordinator on 3227 7904
or Julie Jones, Events and Festivals on 3225 1455

or visit the EPA website at www.epa.qld.gov.au

Julie Jones
PPR Events & Festivals
Environmental Protection Agency

Congratulations to Julie and Tamara on such a successful first event!

Butt HuntersDreaming of a Butt Free Festival

The Dreaming Festival, like the most recent Woodford Folk Festival, introduced designated smoking areas to the site.

9 smoking areas were erected with tables, chairs, Butt out bins and covers as well as butt bins at pedestrian entrances to the site.

A team of 6 volunteer Butt Hunters were out on Safari handing out personal ashtrays and picking up littered butts. The program was well received by the public and organisers. Over 3700 Butts were collected in Designated Smoking areas. 1000 Personal ashtrays were distributed. The number of littered butts were comparatively higher than Woodford event.

Still it's early days and a great effort for the first time!

Healthy Waterways Awards honour South East Queensland's dedicated waterway champions

The Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, Andrew McNamara, and Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman honoured champions of waterway health across industry, community and government at last night's Healthy Waterways Awards.

The South East Queensland Healthy Waterways Partnership - a collaboration between government, industry, scientists and community - hosts the annual event to recognise important efforts to restore the river catchments and marine systems of south-east Queensland.

The Awards are open to anyone who supports the Partnership's vision for healthy waterways, including individuals, schools, community groups, students, government agencies, industry, planners, educators and communicators.

The Honourable Andrew McNamara, Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, said the Healthy Waterways Awards were important in raising public awareness about the tremendous work done by the community, industry and government towards improving the health of South East Queensland's waterways.

"I would like to acknowledge those members of the community, businesses, schools and councils, who have taken a keen interest in our waterways and work tirelessly to protect them," Hon Mr McNamara said.

Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman said the Healthy Waterways Awards played an important part in protecting waterways.

"The Awards are not just a way for us to pay tribute to those involved in this important work, they play a major role in engaging more people in this important mission," Cr Newman said.

"In Brisbane City Council we recognise community participation is key to protecting our environment and so I want to thank all the nominees today for their major contributions to Council-led programs such as the creek ranger program with local groups and sewage plant upgrades that help reduce nitrogen in Moreton Bay," he said.

Winners are awarded across eight categories. This year, the Minister's Grand Prize of $10,000 - for the overall most innovative project - was awarded to Bunyaville Environmental Education Centre for their Catchment P.L.A.Y. (Partnerships Learning Action Youth) Project.

Other 2008 Healthy Waterways Award recipients included:

SEQ Healthy Waterways Partnership Project Director, Di Tarte acknowledged the people of South East Queensland responsible for making our waterways healthier ecosystems.

"The Healthy Waterways Awards are all about giving recognition for their hard work and celebrating achievements," Ms Tarte said.

The 2008 Healthy Waterways Awards were supported by Channel 7 and Radio 4BC.

Anna Walker
SEQ Healthy Waterways Partnership

Pre planning planning Meeting

The QLPA planning meeting had to be postponed due to our guest speaker Karen Cosson from Sustainability Victoria being unable to attend. The meeting has been rescheduled. Eight of the Alliance partners still met in Brisbane last week to discuss issues relating to the upcoming planning meeting.

Several interesting ideas were discussed which will be included in the agenda.

If you have anything to add to the agenda please contact by Monday afternoon.

Our thanks go to Sustainability Victoria for sponsoring Karen to assist us with her wealth of knowledge.

Karen Cosson is presently the Litter Strategy Project Manager for Sustainability Victoria.

New Planning Meeting date

10.30 am 15th July
Hosted by Brisbane City Council
Green Square
Fortitude Valley
Ask for the QLPA meeting with Bernie Quinn at reception

Global Litter News

Significant improvement' in Dublin litter levels

A new report focusing on the cleanest towns in Ireland has described Dublin as an area of "significant improvement", it emerged today.

Independent.ie said the Irish Business Against Litter (Ibal) survey put the capital 16th out of 55 in terms of cleanliness.

This is better than in previous years when it was a "blackspot" for litter.

DublinTop of the list was Ennis in Country Clare, which was named as the country's cleanest area.

According to the annual survey, 60 per cent of Irish towns have achieved one of the highest rankings, compared to seven per cent six years ago.

Ibal's chairman Tom Cavanagh was quoted by the newspaper as saying that litter levels are important for the tourism business.

"A positive first impression is critical to our tourism product," he said. "Tourists to the capital are less likely to be met by cleanliness standards below what they experience at home."

Ibal was set up in 1996 and claims that litter levels have improved by 40 per cent over a five-year period.

Talking Litter Bins

http://www.edie.net/products/view_entry.asp?id=714

Talking Litter BinsThere has been much interest recently in finding a Litter Bin that can talk. It attracts the attention of the person placing waste in the receptacle, and offers a message.

It could be a simple message just to thank the person for using the Litter Bin, or as an advertising slogan for a branded bin.

Taking this a stage further Amberol Limited have developed the 'Amberol Animals' which are designed especially for children of all ages. Their friendly features encourage children to treat them as 'the Pal in the Playground'. The addition of a voice rewards the child with a suitable message when feeding the 'Animal', this encourages them to find more litter to place in the Litter Bin, ensuring that youngsters of today become responsible adults in the future.

The Animal bins are a range of bears and a Panda, a Penguin, Chick, Robin and Parrot. All bins have a 90 litre capacity, although the bear can be increased to 180 litres with a recycling point at the rear. They have been designed for use in schools, hospitals, leisure centres, play areas and can be used in many other locations.

Amberol also produce a range of standard street litter bins and recycling bins with capacities from 50-150 litres, these may also incorporate a voice.

All bins are produced in a range of colours and can be matched to most corporate colour schemes, logos and crests can also be included.

For more information, please contact: Patience Atkinson, Amberol Limited, The Plantation, King Street, Alfreton, Derbyshire DE55 7TT. Telephone 01773 830930 Fax 01773 834191. E-mail
Website www.amberol.co.uk

Shock tactics to stop litter? Load of rubbish

Entry from 'Green Armageddon' by Sam Bond

Random musings and occasional rants from the direction of the newsroom.

A bit like an angry mum frustrated by her teenager's failure to keep the bedroom tidy, Manchester City Council has refused to tidy up after residents to show them what a mess they make.

As part of its Own Your Streets day the local authority has, for the past three years, withheld street cleaning services for 24 hours.

Now the strategy is getting wider attention, with the Local Government Association considering urging its members up and down the country to follow suit.

According to the LGA, in England alone we drop 30 million tonnes of litter in the streets every year and in case we are having trouble visualising that, they tell us it's enough rubbish to fill 1,500 which is, err, much easier to get your head round.

These 'shock tactics' are apparently designed to surprise all those easily-flappable Mancunians into nipping off to the nearest bin to ensure they dispose of their wrappers, packets, bottles and cans in a more responsible manner.

Having been to developing countries where waste management isn't a big priority for the local authority, however, I'd be surprised if this scheme has much of an impact. Once they are used to it, people seem happy enough to sidestep the mounds of detritus that build up in the absence of a street sweeper.

I

t's not just a Third World thing, either. I've had the fortune to visit Amsterdam a couple of years back when the bin men were on strike and huge piles of refuse sacks surrounded every available lamp post while the gutters were awash with your common-or-garden litter.

Despite having an enviable national reputation for waste management, the locals seemed to get used to the situation pretty quickly, and, after a spot of preliminary groaning, just knuckled down to business as usual.

Those piles of rubbish didn't seem to discourage littering either, but rather like a kind of perverse flipside of New York's celebrated zero tolerance strategy of the 1990s, seemed to say 'look, it's a mess already, you might as well add to it'.

In a tidy street, you might see an imminent litterer glancing sheepishly around to see if anyone's watching before doing the deed.

But in a city already cluttered with muck, who's going to care?

Fast food industry works with councils to minimise waste

A project run by fast food giant McDonalds has proved that Defra's voluntary code of practice for reducing litter really does work.

Piloted in a pioneering joint initiative between McDonalds and the Local Government Association (LGA) as part of Defra's Food on the Go programme, early results have shown that the project is delivering a litter reduction of up to 65%.

Defra's Food on the Go voluntary code of practice encourages partnership agreements for reducing waste between councils and local stores that sell food and drinks to take away. It also includes successful pilot projects and provides recommendations on minimising waste.

"Local councils face a constant battle to keep streets clean, and litter from popular quick service restaurants contributes to this," said Councillor David Sparks, chair of the LGA's environment board. "By working together, councils and local businesses can coordinate their activities and pool their resources, giving anti-litter messages and campaigns greater impact."

Regular litter patrols, sponsored litterbins and in-store messages were some of the activities suggested by Defra's code of practice. Project partners have also been encouraged to take part in their own clean-up activities, as well as making an effort to reduce their own packaging and waste.

Environmental manager at McDonalds Jessica Sansom told edie that the company was always looking for new ways to engage and promote effective and workable environmental practices.

"The code of practice recognises that businesses themselves do not drop the litter, but that all food retailers must take responsibility by playing their part in improving their local area," Ms Sansom stated. "We have seen some fantastic improvements in the environmental quality of local areas as a result of our pilot, and I know it was a positive experience for both our restaurants and the councils involved."

She added that McDonalds was the first restaurant company to introduce litter patrols, and has a long standing litter prevention programme. Rival restaurant Burger King has also been doing its part to combat litter problems, recently joining with Norwich City Council to form the BK Litter Patrol as part of a local campaign to clean up the debris and litter left behind by customers and pedestrians.

Environment Minister Alun Michael said that the code was good news for the public, businesses and local authorities alike, and would help to make public spaces cleaner, better places to visit, live in and work in.

"Outlets selling fast food are a significant source of much of the litter which blights our streets. But if they can urge their customers to dispose of their litter carefully and take steps to minimise the spread of their waste packaging, it will be a great step forward in the battle to clean-up up our shared spaces," Mr Michael stated.

"It is a positive move by the industry to want to assist."

By Jane Kettle

Sea of Trash - Gore Point, Alaska

Gore Point, Alaska

Ocean currents funnel a relentless tide of plastic trash and other debris to the unpopulated shores of Gore Point in Alaska.

By DONOVAN HOHN
Photos: Ted Raynor
Published: June 22, 2008

Off Gore Point, where tide rips collide, the rolling swells rear up and steepen into whitecaps. Quiet with concentration, Chris Pallister decelerates from 15 knots to 8, strains to peer through a windshield blurry with spray, tightens his grip on the wheel and, like a skier negotiating moguls, coaxes his home-built boat, the Opus - aptly named for a comic-strip penguin - through the chaos of waves. Our progress becomes a series of concussions punctuated by troughs of anxious calm. In this it resembles the rest of Pallister's life.

Storms drive plastic debris hundreds of feet into the forest beyond the shores of Gore Point.

A 55-year-old lawyer with a monkish haircut, glasses that look difficult to break, an allergy of the eyes that makes him squint and a private law practice in Anchorage, Pallister spends most of his time directing a nonprofit group called the Gulf of Alaska Keeper, or GoAK (pronounced GO-ay-kay). According to its mission statement, GoAK's lofty purpose is to "protect, preserve, enhance and restore the ecological integrity, wilderness quality and productivity of Prince William Sound and the North Gulf Coast of Alaska." In practice, the group has, since Pallister and a few like-minded buddies founded it in 2005, done little else besides clean trash from beaches. All along Alaska's outer coast, Chris Pallister will tell you, there are shores strewn with marine debris, as man-made flotsam and jetsam is officially known. Most of that debris is plastic, and much of it crosses the Gulf of Alaska or even the Pacific Ocean to arrive there.

The tide of plastic isn't rising only on Alaskan shores. In 2004 two oceanographers from the British Antarctic Survey completed a study of plastic dispersal in the Atlantic that spanned both hemispheres. "Remote oceanic islands", the study showed, "may have similar levels of debris to those adjacent to heavily industrialized coasts". Even on the shores of Spitsbergen Island in the Arctic, the survey found on average a plastic item every five meters.

Back in the 1980s, the specter of fouled beaches was a recurring collective nightmare. The Jersey Shore was awash in used syringes. New York's garbage barge wandered the seas. On the approach to Kennedy Airport, the protagonist of "Paradise", a late Donald Barthelme novel, looked out his airplane window and saw "a hundred miles of garbage in the water, from the air white floating scruff". We tend to tire of new variations on the apocalypse, however, the same way we tire of celebrities and pop songs. Eventually all those syringes, no longer delivering a jolt of guilt or dread, receded from the national consciousness. Who could worry about seabirds garotted by six-pack rings when Alaska's shores were awash in Exxon's crude? Who could worry about turtles tangled in derelict fishing nets when the ice caps were melting and the terrorists were coming?

Gore Point, AlaskaThen, too, for a while it seemed as if we might succeed in laying this particular ecological nightmare to rest. In the mid-1980s, New York's sanitation department began deploying vessels called TrashCats to hoover up scruff from the waterways around the Fresh Kills landfill. Elsewhere beach-sweeping machines did the same for the sand. In 1987 the federal government ratified Marpol Annex V, an international treaty that made it illegal to throw nonbiodegradable trash - that is, plastic - overboard from ships in the waters of signatory countries. The good news for the ocean kept coming: in 1988, Congress passed the Ocean Dumping Reform Act, which forbade cities to decant their untreated sewage into the sea. In 1989 the Ocean Conservancy staged its first annual International Coastal Cleanup (I.C.C.), which has since grown into the largest such event in the world. But beautification can be deceiving. Although many American beaches - especially those that generate tourism revenues - are much cleaner these days than they used to be, the oceans, it seems, are another matter.

Not even oceanographers can tell us exactly how much floating scruff is out there; oceanographic research is simply too expensive and the ocean too varied and vast. In 2002, Nature magazine reported that during the 1990s, debris in the waters near Britain doubled; in the Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica the increase was a hundredfold. And depending on where they sample, oceanographers have found that between 60 and 95 percent of today's marine debris is made of plastic.

Plastic gets into the ocean when people throw it from ships or leave it in the path of an incoming tide, but also when rivers carry it there, or when sewage systems and storm drains overflow. Despite the Ocean Dumping Reform Act, the U.S. still releases more than 850 billion gallons of untreated sewage and storm runoff every year, according to a 2004 E.P.A. report. Comb the Manhattan waterfront and you will find, along with the usual windrows of cups, bottles and plastic bags, what the E.P.A. calls "floatables", those "visible buoyant or semi-buoyant solids" that people flush into the waste stream like cotton swabs, condoms, tampon applicators and dental floss.

The Encyclopedia of Coastal Processes, about as somniferously clinical a scientific source on the subject as one can find, predicts that plastic pollution "will incrementally increase through the 21st century", because "the problems created are chronic and potentially global, rather than acute and local or regional as many would contemplate". The problems are chronic because, unlike the marine debris of centuries past, commercial plastics do not biodegrade in seawater. Instead, they persist, accumulating over time, much as certain emissions accumulate in the atmosphere. The problems are global because the sources of plastic pollution are far-flung but also because, like emissions riding the winds, pollutants at sea can travel.

QLPA Catchup! is Proudly Sponsored and Partnered By

Queensland Litter Prevention AllianceAustralian Food and Grocery CouncilSouth East Queensland Catchments

Current Partners

Sunshine Coast Regional CouncilNoosa Integrated Catchment AssociationMoreton Regional Council

Keep Australia Beautiful Qld. Inc.Healthy WaterwaysIpswich City CouncilQueensland Government EPA

Redland Shire CouncilBrisbane City CouncilWaterwatch

Gold Coast City CouncilWoodford Folk Festival

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