Moreton Bay Regional Council is going green this Christmas, measuring carbon outputs and implementing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Public Place Recycling program to reduce and recycle waste.
Located 44 kilometres north of Brisbane, Moreton Bay covers more than 2,000 square kilometres and has a population of 343,500 people.
Moreton Bay Mayor, Councillor Allan Sutherland, said Council will use its Pine Rivers Christmas Parade and Concert on 13 December as a gauge to measure the impact of public events on climate change.
“Council’s Events Unit and Environment Services Department have worked together to develop an events eco-calculator, which calculates greenhouse emissions from event electricity, gas and fuel usage, including generators and vehicles, as well as water usage and waste generation,” he said. “This tool will be trialled at the Parade and Concert.
“The information generated will assist Council to identify the biggest environmental impacts of public events and help prioritise actions to reduce those impacts.”
Mayor Sutherland said Council will also use the EPA’s Public Place Recycling program, which involves placing recycling bins at major public events, shopping centres, sporting stadiums and parks throughout Queensland over the next two years.
“Through this program, Council will receive bin caps with limiters to stop people putting general waste in recycling bins,” he said. “The EPA will also provide educational materials, such as ‘Do the Right thing, Use the Right bin’ signage, fact sheets, video screen announcements, and MC announcements. This will make it easy for people to see what should be placed into each bin, reducing contamination and the amount of rubbish going to landfill.”
Mayor Sutherland said the data collected from the Christmas Parade and Concert, including the percentage of useful recyclable material collected from the total waste generated, will be used to establish environmentally friendly event management practices.
“The data will be presented to the EPA, which will prepare a report for Council, identifying environmentally friendly event management recommendations and justifying potential budget increases for carbon offsets,” he said. “Increased recycling at future events will not only reduce waste going into landfill and create a new life for these valuable materials, but will also reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and water usage associated with extracting, transporting and processing new materials and products.”
Councillor Sutherland said at future events throughout the region, Council will also encourage vendors to use biodegradable food packaging.
For further information contact Moreton Bay Regional Council on (07) 3205 0555.
