We live in a 'WickED' community

19 November 2019 - Media release

The 2019 Waste In Campaspe – Know, Educate, Do (WickED) Sustainability Awards winners were announced at a special Ceremony held at the Echuca Library on Tuesday, 12 November.

Campaspe Shire Mayor Cr Adrian Weston said the Sustainability Awards are council’s way of acknowledging the wonderful work our community is doing for the environment.

“The awards are open to Campaspe businesses, communities, individuals and schools and we are always blown away by the calibre of initiatives delivered by our dedicated community members,” Cr Weston said.

This year’s theme was ‘avoid, reduce, reuse – keeping food waste out of landfill’ and it aligned perfectly with council’s strong focus on diverting organic waste from landfill which is being achieved through the Give A Scrap (to your green bin) Program.

Special guest speaker Vanessa Lenihan, CEO of Biomix Compost near Stanhope, spoke at the Awards evening about the importance of composting food and garden waste, and how Biomix achieves that with the material they receive from Campaspe’s green bins.

Some strong themes that emerged from the entries were initiatives and strategies geared towards home composting, worm farms, using a green bin  and keeping chooks – all of which help keep food waste out of landfill.

Entrants were required to submit photos, posters, stories or videos that showed how they address the theme.

“More than 30 entries were received from across the shire and were of a very high standard making the judging process a difficult one,” Cr Weston said.

The two award categories and winners were:

Individual/Community Group Category - $300 cash prize

Rochester Community House with their PowerPoint presentation “Rochester Community House’s Recycling Programs”. In March this year FoodShare program started. Not only does this help members of the community to access free food, it also diverts food from landfill. Roughly one tonne of food a week is received, which reaches around 200 people. Leftover food from the FoodShare program goes to their Food is Free table. Anything that is no good, goes to volunteers with animals or into the green bins to be composted.

Other awards presented in this category were:

High commendation award ($100 cash prize): Emily Noske-Turner from Echuca, whose video entry “Al, Paul & Tree (our chickens)” showed how 2-year-old twins Jimmy and Raph give their food scraps to their chickens. Encouragement award ($100 cash prize): Janice Wilson from Rochester for her PowerPoint entry displaying how she keeps compost worms at home to reduce household waste and greenhouse gas emissions.

School Category - $500 cash prize for the school to put towards a sustainability project

Preps from Lockington Consolidated School whose music video entry titled “Sustainable Superheroes 2019” showcased all the initiatives the students took in making their school more sustainable. From feeding chooks to growing vegetables, these superheroes are paving the way for the planet.

Other awards presented in this category were:

High commendation award ($200 for the school to put towards a sustainability project): went to St Mary’s Primary School Rushworth for their video entry “Five Stream Waste System Introduction Education” showing how the students have introduced five different waste streams and how they educate students to know which bin to use. Encouragement award went to the students at Tongala Primary School who created a feature news-style video showcasing their impressive aquaponics system at school and how they propose to introduce a soldier fly farm to divert food scraps.

“All entrants demonstrated positive environmental outcomes the many ways in which our community is conserving the environment and its resources for the future,” Cr Weston said.

The WickED Sustainability Awards were proudly sponsored by Veolia and Biomix.