QLPA CatchUp!

Welcome to the third issue of the QLPA CatchUp!

It appears to be a time of change with several members of the executive committee leaving their present employment. We are saying goodbye to three valued partners Deluna Lawrence Redland Council, Manny Manatakis from AFGC (formerly BIEC) and Emanuel Ganser SEQ Catchments. On behalf of the QLPA partners I would like to thank them for their ideas, energy and support in establishing and guiding the Alliance to a promising future. You will all be missed!

It's been a busy time with several funding applications being written for everything from office equipment to waste wise events programs, mobile butt out bins to litter displays. So fingers crossed!

In this addition we say some sad goodbyes, some hearty welcomes and profile one of our newest members.

Kylie Johnston from the EPA gives us some good news on the new litter laws and Bernie Quinn reports on Brisbane Council's new campaign.

The next partners meeting has been planned for the 28th June at a great venue, thanks to Caboolture Council and CREEC. We are only holding 2 partners meetings a year so we'd love to see all the partners there.

Executive meetings happen quarterly at the SEQ Catchments office and all partners are welcome to attend.

In this issue

Goodbyes and Welcomes
Member Profile
The Environmental Protection Amendment Bill 2007
Council CatchUp!
Plastics 'poisoning world's seas'
What's new for loan?
Partners meeting
What's on?

Good Bye message from Emanuel

"I would like to thank all the QLPA for their drive in dealing with the difficult issue of litter and more importantly the social paradigm shift needed to stem this modern problem. I have enjoyed my position of treasurer and wish the QLPA all the best for the future. My role in Denmark WA is still in NRM so I will still be in touch with issues and strategies related to litter and waste management and hopefully utilise some of my learnings from my time with the alliance. I would like to welcome my colleague Darren McPherson whom will be joining the alliance in my stead."

Darren's position title is the Local Government Sector Partnership Manager for SEQ Catchments, the regional body responsible for the coordination of Natural Resource Management in South East Queensland.

His role is specifically to support and increase the capacity of the Local Governments that comprise this region, in their ability to undertake Natural Resource Management activities, and eventually have natural resource management considerations incorporated as part of core Local Government's Role.

Welcome to our new members!

• Kaylene Scott - Caboolture Council
• Chris Webb - Pine Rivers Council
• Christine Blanchard - LGAQ
• Darren McPherson - SEQ Catchments
• Greg Mulder - Noosa Council
• Wayne Cameron & Bulimba Creek Catchment Coordinating Committee (B4C)
• Queensland Folk Federation

Alliance Member Profile

Name: Wayne Cameron - Bulimba Creek Catchment Coordinating Committee (B4C)

Family: Wife and 3 adult sons

Where do you live: Carina Heights, Brisbane (near Carindale)

Personal Interests: Environment, biodiversity issues, community.

Your Position in Your Organisation: President

About your organisation? B4C

• We are a voluntary organisation, endorsed as a Landcare, Catchment Group in 1999.
• B4C supports 20 Bushcare Groups
• B4C works from a Catchment/Volunteer Centre funded by Boral Quarries Queensland.
• Environmental Services Unit employs manager, 2 supervisors, 2 trainees
• Volunteers work in the office, community nursery and in the field (approx 200 hr/wk)
• Corporate support from Powerlink, Caltex, Transfield, Landcare Australia

Mission Statement

• To have an ecologically sustainable catchment with a continuous vegetated corridor.
• The health and natural process of our waterway and catchment be protected and enhanced.
• Identify the threatening processes to our catchment and devise actions to remedy their impacts.
• To encourage and resource community involvement in caring for the Environment.

How long have you worked in your field of the industry?
Catchment group began in 1997

What is the most concerning litter related issue in your area?
Dumping of greenwaste from houses joining waterway corridors and natural areas. Also industrial pollution.

Which Littering behavioural issue really bugs you?
People with trailers stopping on side of road and dumping rubbish in bushland.

Items of interests. Eg awards, travel experience, previous successes, etc.

• B4C won National Riverprize in 2005.
• B4C won Healthy Waterways Community Group for 3 consecutive years 2002-5.
• Wayne Cameron won inaugural Healthy Waterways Champion in 2006.
• Wayne travelled to Thailand to promote Twinning with College and community group in 2006.
• Wayne travelled to Borneo in 2005, concerned about rainforest clearing.

Pictured left: Wayne with some eager young helpers

The Environmental Protection Amendment Bill 2007

Litter enforcement was introduced into Parliament on 22 May 2007. This Bill amends the Environmental Protection Act 1994. While the provisions are yet to commence, they will:

• Provide the ability for an authorised person to issue an infringement notice to the registered owner of a vehicle (including a boat) from which a littering offence was observed by an authorised person;
• Introduce a range of littering offences and penalties;
• Allow an authorised person to direct a person to clean up litter where more than 20 litres has been deposited.

Enforcement of littering offences from a vehicle will now be able to occur in much the same way as a camera-detected offence such as speeding or red-light, where the registered owner receives the notice in the mail. The registered owner will have the ability to provide a declaration to the administering authority (either the local government or the EPA) stating that it wasn't them and naming either the user of the vehicle, the passenger who littered or providing information that the car was stolen or sold at the time of the offence. A new infringement notice could then be issued to the person named in the declaration. The littering offences and on-the-spot infringement penalties are:

• Dangerous littering - $300
• Littering from a vehicle - $225
• Depositing more than 20 litres of litter - $300
• Depositing more than 200 litres of litter - $1237.50
• Other (general) littering - $150
• Failure to comply with a direction to clean up more than 20 litres of litter carries a maximum penalty of 100 penalty units.

Authorised person training and communication and awareness material is currently being developed. A three-month amnesty period is also being proposed, during which time an authorised person may issue a warning notice rather than an infringement notice for littering offences from a vehicle. Training and communication will be undertaken at this time. The littering provisions currently in the Environmental Protection (Waste Management) Regulation 2000 will be repealed when the new legislation commences.

Council CatchUp!

Brisbane City Council Litter Prevention Campaign - a great success!

It's been a very busy time with litter for BCC. We have launched a "Litter Prevention Awareness Campaign". Anyone, who has taken a walk through the CBD and Valley recently, would have noticed plenty of advertising around littering and fines. In April, council began a month of warning people of the consequences of littering (environmental and financial). During that phase of the campaign, council officers issued more than 430 warnings to people seen littering.

On May 1, BCC officers commenced issuing PINs to people seen littering. By the end of the first week of the enforcement stage, there had been 111 PINs issued at $150 each. Council also handed out personal ashtrays to people seen doing the right thing as a means of reinforcing positive behaviour.

BCC's focus is not solely on the big stick approach, but on improving the cleaning regime across the city and making it easier for people to do the right thing. Since November last year we have installed more than 130 stand alone butt bins across the city as well as developing a butt bin that can be retro-fitted to our domed signature litter bins. Brisbane City Works and Local Asset Services carried out cleaning, repairs and auditing of all litter bins across the city to improve the standard of our bins. We have introduced a flying gang as a quick response team, to address clean up issues as they arise and have increased the number of staff on the ground. Council is currently trialing two new street sweeping machines that are small enough and quiet enough to use in the malls and footpaths during the day to improve the cleanliness of these areas and to raise the visibility of council's anti-litter program.

We have received good media support through a partnership with MX newspaper, which has seen the paper run an article per day since mid April. MX has also been rewarding positive binning behaviour by giving away an iPod per day to people seen doing the right thing.

BCC and other local governments have made comments on the draft new Queensland Litter Legislation. It will, hopefully, be proclaimed in July with an amnesty period of 2-3 months whilst public education is undertaken. The new legislation's aim is to make it easier for Council to issue fines to litter bugs. Has anyone seen the "Big Belly" compacting litterbins? If you haven't seen them yet, here's the link. BCC may do a trial if the cost isn't too restrictive. Have any of you trialed these bins yet and do you have any feedback to share?

Plastics 'poisoning world's seas'

A study details plastic litter polluting the marine environment

Microscopic particles of plastic could be poisoning the oceans, according to a British team of researchers.

They report that small plastic pellets called "mermaids' tears", which are the result of industry and domestic waste, have spread across the world's seas. The scientists had previously found the debris on UK beaches and in European waters; now they have replicated the finding on four continents.

Scientists are worried that these fragments can get into the food chain. Plastic rubbish, from drinks bottles and fishing nets to the ubiquitous carrier bag, ends up in the world's oceans. Sturdy and durable plastic does not bio-degrade, it only breaks down physically, and so persists in the environment for possibly hundreds of years.

Among clumps of seaweed or flotsam washed up on the shore it is common to find mermaids' tears, small plastic pellets resembling fish eggs.

Some are the raw materials of the plastics industry spilled in transit from processing plants. Others are granules of domestic waste that have fragmented over the years. Either way, mermaids' tears remain everywhere and are almost impossible to clean up.

Raw materials

Dr Richard Thompson at the University of Plymouth is leading research into what happens when plastic breaks down in seawater and what effect it is having on the marine environment.

He and his team set out to out to find out how small these fragments can get. So far they've identified plastic particles of around 20 microns - thinner than the diameter of a human hair.

In 2004 their groundbreaking study reported finding particles on beaches around the UK. Historical records of samples taken by ships plying routes between Britain and Iceland confirmed that the incidence of the particles had been increasing over the years.

Now the team has extended its sampling elsewhere in Europe, and to the Americas, Australia, Africa and Antarctica. They found plastic particles smaller than grains of sand. Dr Thompson's findings estimate there are 300,000 items of plastic per sq km of sea surface, and 100,000 per sq km of seabed.

So plastic appears to be everywhere in our seas. The next task was to try and find out what kind of sea creatures might be consuming it and with what consequences.

Thompson and his team conducted experiments on three species of filter feeders in their laboratory. They looked at the barnacle, the lugworm and the common amphipod or sand-hopper, and found that all three readily ingested plastic as they fed along the seabed. "These creatures are eaten by others along food chain," Dr Thompson explained. "It seems an inevitable consequence that it will pass along the food chain. There is the possibility that chemicals could be transferred from plastics to marine organisms."

BBC correspondent Tom Heap holds examples of "mermaids' tears"

Other contaminants

There are two ways in which this might happen. Firstly, the Plymouth scientists want to establish whether there is the potential for chemicals to leach out of degraded plastic over a larger area after the plastic has been ground down.

The second aspect of this research is focusing on what happens when plastic absorbs other contaminants. So-called hydrophobic chemicals such as PCBs and other polymer additives accumulate on the surface of the sea and latch on to plastic debris.

"They can become magnified in concentration," said Richard Thompson, "and maybe in a different chemical environment, perhaps in the guts of organisms, those chemicals might be released."

Whether plastics present a toxic challenge to marine life and subsequently to humans is one of the biggest challenges facing marine scientists today. The plastics industry's response is that much of the research is speculative at this stage, and that there is very little evidence that this transfer of chemicals is taking place in the wild.

It says it is doing its bit by replacing toxic materials used as stabilisers and flame retardants with less harmful substances. Whatever the findings eventually show, there is little that can be done now to deal with the vast quantities of plastic already in our oceans. It will be there for decades to come.

New equipment for loan

The Alliance now owns a set of waste auditing scales which were bought, slightly 2nd hand from Able Scales. They weight from 220kg down to 20 grams.

The initial skeleton of the strategic plan will be presented at the next partners' meeting in January. In the meantime keep your eye on the website for new information.

What's on?

Caboolture Sustainable Living Fair Saturday 2nd June, 2007. CREEC Site, 150 Rowley Road, Burpengary

Recycling, water conservation, energy efficiency and caring for the catchment are just a handful of the topics to be featured at the sixth annual Sustainable Living Fair.

For more info go to: www.creec.org.au

CLEAN SITE DAY

Keep Australia Beautiful Queensland and the Environmental Protection Agency in association with Logan City Council and Imperial Homes Qld invite you to attend the next Clean Site Demonstration Day on Friday 15 June.

Demonstration Day details

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