Eurobodalla Shire Council has won an award for an outstanding waste management initiative transforming the way residents think about waste.
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The council was announced as the winner of the Behaviour Change in Waste category at the 2022 Local Government NSW Excellence in the Environment Awards for their We CARE Program.
The council's sustainability education officer Alex King said the program was all about helping businesses transition away from single use packaging using the CARE acronym.
CARE stands for Carrying reusable bags, Avoiding single use plastics, Reusing single use plastics where possible and Encouraging others to do the same.
The program was selected as the category winner for councils of similar population size, and as the overall winner against all the other local government councils in NSW.
"Little old Eurobodalla took it out," Ms King said.
![Eurobodalla Shire Council's sustainability education officer Alex King with the trophy for overall winner of the Behaviour Change in Waste category at the 2022 Local Government NSW Excellence in the Environment Awards. Picture supplied. Eurobodalla Shire Council's sustainability education officer Alex King with the trophy for overall winner of the Behaviour Change in Waste category at the 2022 Local Government NSW Excellence in the Environment Awards. Picture supplied.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/156570134/30bbecca-4243-4ef3-964e-827945a05568.png/r0_0_1917_1078_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Since being established in 2018, the program has worked with more than 200 business owners to help find environmentally-sustainable products that suit them and brainstorm other creative ways to reduce single-use waste.
The council didn't randomly choose to declare war on single use plastic. The motivation for the program was all calculated through data.
More than five years ago, Eurobodalla Shire Council installed Drain Buddies at drainage points into Batemans Bay. The Drain Buddies collected litter preventing it from entering the estuary. However when they studied the collected litter and logged it in the Australian Marine Debris Inventory, the council staff realised 96 per cent of this litter was single use plastics from businesses in Batemans Bay.
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It was this data that inspired the We CARE Program.
"I can't begin to explain how powerful data can be in telling a story and creating clout with funding bodies," Ms King said.
The data helped receive funding for the program through the NSW Environmental Trust.
Ms King said the data showed the success of the program, and was key to winning the award.
"Just 12 months after its inception, we saw 50 per cent less litter on the ground in hotspots across the shire," she said.
"Rather than saying 'we ran this learning activity', we were able to show them data."
When single use plastics were banned in NSW in November, Ms King said Eurobodalla businesses were advantaged by already being on the sustainable trajectory.
"It has been really, really useful to have had businesses on that journey before the bans came in," she said.
"It was an easy transition."
When Ms King now checks the Drain Buddies, or walks along the Batemans Bay foreshore, she doesn't see plastic cutlery and cups. If she sees any litter at all, it is half-broken down wooden cutlery.
"I can only imagine we will see single use waste further decreases with the bans," she said.