More communities register for Tidy Towns awards

Communities across Western Australia are showing strong support for this year’s Keep Australia Beautiful (KAB) Tidy Towns Sustainable Communities program, with 74 registrations received for the prestigious awards.

KAB (WA) Chair Mel Hay APM said the high level of interest was remarkable given the economic challenges faced by small communities and natural disasters such as drought, floods and cyclones.

“Despite communities in the Wheatbelt and other regions doing it tough, Tidy Towns entry numbers have reached their highest level since 2005, demonstrating that the program is making a valuable contribution to fostering pride and building strong regional communities,” he said.

“It is also encouraging that we have increased support in the Kimberley, with 15 nominations from Aboriginal communities.”

Mr Hay said submissions were due from registered entrants by 1 June and he encouraged all Tidy Towns committees to seek advice if they had any difficulty in completing them.

Tidy Towns Sustainable Communities, now in its 44th year, is a free program open to all regional towns and communities in Western Australia.

The award categories are: Community Action and Partnerships, Waste Management and Litter Prevention, General Appearance, Water Conservation, Heritage and Culture, Natural Environment Conservation, Energy Innovation, and Young Legends.

Young Legends, a category introduced last year, provides a platform of respect and opportunity for the best ideas and sustainable actions that young Western Australians have to offer.

The Department of Environment and Conservation provides administrative, logistical and policy support to the Keep Australia Beautiful Council WA. This program is supported by the Western Australian Waste Authority through the Landfill Levy fund.

Tidy Towns Sustainable Communities is sponsored by the Department of Regional Development and Lands, GWN7, West Australian Regional Newspapers, Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. and the Packaging Stewardship Forum of the Australian Food and Grocery Council.

For more information about the program go to www.kabc.wa.gov.au or contact Gail Dodd on 6467 5131.

Registrations by region are listed below.

Media contact: DEC Media 6467 5555
Facebook: www.facebook.com/decwa
Twitter: @DECWesternAus

Towns and communities registered:

KABWA investigators recently solved two dumping cases, with the result that the offenders were prosecuted in court. The case for Lee James Whitehead was prosecuted on the 11 January 2013 and the case for Lloyd and Forrester was prosecuted in court on the 1st of March 2013.

On 2 December 2011 Harley John Lloyd and Jason John Forrester, carried out some work on a property in Spearwood. Upon finishing the work they were expected by the owners to take the rubbish to a lawful tip site. Unfortunately they deposited the rubbish on Crown Land off Old Yanchep Road in Pinjar. Our investigators tracked them down and after both were interviewed they returned to the illegal dumpsite and collected the rubbish and took it to a lawful landfill.

Lloyd and Forrester were summonsed to appear at Joondalup Magistrates Court whereby they were fined $1500 each plus $139 costs.

In another case, Lee James Whitehead, (Currambine) carried out some work on two properties over the space of one month in July 2011. The first property in Doubleview was a new build and Whitehead a bobcat driver/operator, cleared the site and then dumped the rubbish on Wesco Road in Nowergup.  During his interview with inspectors he admitted the offence and cleaned up the site.  He attended Joondalup Magistrates Court was fined $3500 plus $278.70 costs.

Each year KAB national conducts a National Litter Index which you can find on our website here (http://www.kabc.wa.gov.au/litter-information/national-litter-index.html)

Recently released is the Branded Litter Study. It compares the makeup of brands in the litter stream for 2011-12 to that in 2007-08.

Results show an average total of 10,565 branded litter objects (down from 12,544 items in 2007/08) were recorded across all national sites surveyed during November 2011 and May 2012. When adjusted for the removal of cigarette butts, branded litter items account for 24% of the total litter stream across Australia.

The Branded Litter Study analyses litter by assigning branded items to eight different industry categories. It displays the most prevalent brands overall and within each category, both nationally and across all states and territories.

Non-alcoholic beverage containers and packaging represented the largest proportion of the branded litter objects identified nationally (25.9%, up from 21.4% in 2007/08). Other industry categories that were associated with large proportions of the branded litter recorded nationally included alcoholic beverage containers & packaging (16.2%, down from 19.5% in 2007/08), take-away food & drink containers & packaging (18.6%, up from 15.3% in 2007/08) and snacks wrappers & packets (16.8%, down from 17.0% in 2007/08).

As a proportion of all branded litter items recorded across Australia, McDonald’s (12.78%, up from 9.85% in 2007/08) and Coca Cola (9.85%, down from 9.96% in 2007/08) clearly made the most significant contributions to the national litter stream.

Within each of the industry categories nationally (excluding other litter), the most commonly identified brands were:

Alcoholic Beverage Containers & Packaging – Carlton (12.2%, up from 7.9% in 2007/08) and Tooheys (11.3%, up from 9.9% in 2007/08)

Milk Beverage Containers & Packaging – Masters (19.6%, down from 26.5% in 2007/08) and Farmers Union (12.9%, up from 12.0% in 2007/08)

Non-alcoholic Beverage Containers & Packaging – Coca Cola (38.1%, down from 46.5% in 2007/08)

Retail Brands & Packaging – Coles (28.1%, up from 24.0% in 2007/08) and Woolworths (24.5%, down from 30.6% in 2007/08)

Snacks Wrappers & Packets – Cadbury (24.1%, up from 22.0% in 2007/08)

Take-away Food & Drink Containers & Packaging – McDonald’s – (68.8%, up from 64.3% in 2007/08)

Tobacco – Winfield (31.2%, down from 31.4% in 2007/08)

Analysis of category results throughout Australia shows that highway sites generally contributed the highest proportion of branded litter across all eight industry categories. Additionally, the contribution of branded litter by the main material categories shows that the majority of branded litter objects were either paper/ paperboard (35.7%, down from 39% in 2007/08) or plastic (33.7%, up from 31.3% in 2007/08) items.

Bali cleanup day inspired by Toodyay Tidy Town.  Keep Australia Beautiful  helped support Mike Griffiths with information and  resources for his Bali trip and cleanup.

Toodyay Inspires Bali Clean Up