Breaking News
Changing children’s lives
Mid Murray Family Connections initiative has delivered social change.
A project that has helped cut the number of developmentally vulnerable children in South Australia’s Mid Murray district, from one in three to one in ten within six years, has won State recognition. Read more >
Councils buy back their rubbish
In an Australian first, nine South Australian councils have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to prioritise buying products made from recycled materials.
This MOU is the beginning of a circular procurement pilot project, led by the Local Government Association of South Australia (LGASA) with the assistance of a $96,500 Green Industries South Australia grant.
The goal is to increase local demand for recycled materials, support the development of a circular economy, and ultimately reduce waste and recycling costs for councils.
The participating councils include Adelaide Hills Council, City of Burnside, City of Charles Sturt, Mount Barker District Council, Rural City of Murray Bridge, City of Norwood Payneham and St Peters, City of Onkaparinga, City of Port Adelaide Enfield, and City of Prospect.
Through the MOU, these councils have committed to prioritising the purchase of recycled-content products through the procurement process, and tracking and reporting on recycled-content purchasing by weight.
Most also adopted a rolling target for the purchase of recycled plastic products, working towards eventually buying back recycled materials equivalent to half the weight of plastics collected in their council area.
Examples of products made of recycled materials that can be purchased by councils include road and construction materials, street furniture, bollards, office stationery and compost.
The MOU was signed onsite at Advanced Plastic Recycling (APR) – a leading manufacturer and designer of recycled wood plastic composite products made from 100 percent post-consumer waste.
Products produced by APR include bollards, boardwalks, fencing, and street furniture.
Letter to the editor
To the editor,
I look forward to reading LG Focus each month, as it provides interesting insights into what is going on in the diverse world of local government. However, when I eventually got around to reading the August issue, I was appalled at the unattributed article on glyphosate.
The article regurgitates the usual rhetoric I would expect to see from ill-informed anti-everything activists.
It cites without question a report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2015 which claimed that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic”. That report has now been comprehensively discredited – but no mention of this was made in the article.
No other herbicide has been subjected to as many rigorous tests and investigations as glyphosate and yet there is no scientific proof that it has harmed anyone.
At the same time, there is clear evidence that it has reduced the environmental impact of agriculture, allowing us to sustainably produce more from finite resources of land and water thus improving the lives of millions of people.
In 2017, the European Food Safety Authority completed a reassessment of glyphosate as part of the EU’s pesticide renewal process. Using a risk-based, weight-of-evidence assessment approach, EFSA considered an extensive body of scientific evidence – including the IARC review– and determined that there was no credible evidence that glyphosate causes cancer
in humans.
The US Agricultural Health Study has been tracking 89,000 farmers who use glyphosate for 23 years. It has found “no association between glyphosate exposure and all cancer incidence or most of the specific cancer subtypes evaluated”.
In 2016, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) commissioned a review of the IARC report along with various risk assessments undertaken by expert international bodies and regulatory agencies. This review concluded that glyphosate does not pose a carcinogenic risk to humans when used in accordance with guidelines and that there are no grounds to place it under formal reconsideration.
Experts the world over have categorically deemed glyphosate safe.
Unfortunately, we live in an age where rational science-based evidence struggles to stand against ill-informed opinion, and the divide between those growing food and those eating it is stark.
I expect better of a publication that is meant to be objective and is directed at a target audience that relies on facts to inform decision-making. In this instance, you have failed to meet that standard.
Regards,
Jan Davis
Councillor, Northern Midlands Council
EDGE proves a huge success
Closing EDGE Greenway physical theatre company, Legs on the Wall were a hit.
Inner West Council’s inaugural EDGE – a series of five planned 'creative precincts activations' – attracted thousands of people from across Sydney in March. Read more >
New wheels making memories
Port Fairy Library welcomed a few of Moyne’s oldest and youngest residents.
Some of Port Fairy’s youngest residents got to take their new wheels for a spin, when they had their first excursion outside of the childcare facilities at Port Fairy Community Services Centre, Victoria. Read more >
Dementia-friendly community
Dementia-Friendly Connect Café provides a pop-up weekly offering of entertainment and social support for patrons.
Located between Devonport and Burnie, Central Coast Council is the 2019 winner of the Local Government Association of Tasmania (LGAT) Award for Excellence for larger councils. Read more >
A project that has helped cut the number of developmentally vulnerable children in South Australia’s Mid Murray district, from one in three to one in ten within six years, has won State recognition.
