Welcome to the March edition of the HOW newsletter

Hello everyone,

In this edition, find out about the Halve Our Waste eNews survey results, local business achievements and Council recycling initiatives. Get tips for reducing food waste with fussy kids, the latest recycling news and more.

Thank you to everyone that undertook the Halve Our Waste survey. We received lots of positive feedback and great ideas which we will do our best to take on board. For example, survey respondents primarily said that they wanted to hear more about:

• Recycling (74%)
• Council and community initiatives that address the waste issue (72%)
• Waste avoidance and reduction (68%)

Given the survey feedback, we have now opened the newsletter up to other members of the public.

Local businesses awarded for preventing waste

Frankston City Council, in partnership with Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria and local volunteer group 3199 Frankston Beach Patrol, recently worked with businesses in the Frankston city centre to help prevent and better manage waste and litter.

Over 200 local businesses were engaged and provided with education through this Bay Friendly Businesses program, supported with funding from the Victorian Government.

Council congratulates Australian Red Cross, Bendigo Bank, Breathe Hair, Drummond Golf, Eeny Meeny and Trims Restaurant for their involvement in the program and taking steps to minimise stormwater pollution, waste and litter. These businesses also participated in a Voluntary Code of Practice, pledging to implement improvement actions.

Bendigo Bank, Breathe Hair and Eeny Meeny were officially recognised as being a Bay Friendly Business.

Some of the actions that participating businesses undertook to prevent and better manage waste and litter include:

• No longer distributing plastic bags
• Replacing disposable plastic straws with paper ones
• Dropping off waste oil to an oil recycler
• Introducing a recycling collection
• Pledging to replace some items with equivalent items made from recycled materials
• Collecting compostable items, such as paper towels (not recyclable) and coffee grounds for home composting.

These actions help protect our environment into the future. Sharing these achievements could help inspire other businesses to take similar steps to reduce and better manage waste.

Reducing waste with fussy kids

Are you sick of seeing school lunches return home untouched? Involving your kids in the food making process can get them eating more of what you put in front of them. Here’s how:

• Whether it’s by washing, mixing or measuring ingredients, even young kids can help prepare food
• Seek flavour advice from the kids, e.g. “Can you please taste this and tell me if it needs more X”
• Ask older kids why they don’t like something – maybe it’s not that particular type of food, but the combination or how it's prepared
• If your kid wants the same thing every night, consider compromising with once a week

Veggie boxes coming to Frankston

Growing your own is a great way to avoid packaging waste. Soon there will also be some community garden beds filled with seasonal edible veggies, available to passers-by.

What a great way to green our streets, create connections and showcase where our food comes from!

This Pop-Up Veggie Planter Boxes project is part of the Love Where You Live initiative, a series of local area projects in Frankston City over the next 18 months. It will be run by a working group comprising of community members and Council staff. 

You can get involved by:

• Attending a project working group meeting to help get the planter boxes out on the street
• Becoming a planter box ‘Champion’ or ‘Custodian’ (businesses, organisations and community groups only)
• Providing gardening/ planting expertise

For more information, phone 9768 1629/ 9784 1015 or email lovewhereyoulive@frankston.vic.gov.au

Reducing waste with cloth nappies

Children go through around 6000 nappy changes before they graduate to underpants.

Reusable cloth nappies are a lot easier than they use to be and compared to disposables, have a number of benefits:

• Less waste sent landfill
• Cost savings (in the long run)
• More breathable

Although using cloth nappies will mean you need to do more washing, it is a great way to reduce waste so well worth considering.

Nappy libraries and washing services are also available.

Recycling services continue as normal

Frankston City residents are encouraged to continue recycling as normal. Items from both household and public place recycling bins continue to be collected for recycling.

Unlike some other councils, we are not affected by the temporary shut-down of some SKM recycling sorting facilities, as our recyclables are processed by other service providers.

Recycling sorting facilities (also known as Material Recovery Facilities or MRFs) are where the mixed recyclables get sorted into different streams (such as aluminium, steel, paper/cardboard, plastic and glass), which then get sent off to different markets for recycling.

Recycle more this Easter

Choose your Easter treats with minimal, recyclable packaging this year.

Foil wrappers bunched up into a ball, cardboard and hard plastic containers can all go in your recycling bin.

Frankston City Council staff collecting plastic bottle tops for ‘Envision Hands’

‘Envision Hands’ (formerly Helping Hands) is a recycling project run by Seaford-based charity Envision to transform plastic bottle tops into prosthetic hands for children in underserviced third world countries.

When Keely, from Frankston City Council’s Community Engagement team found out about the ‘Envision Hands’ project, she started an office collection.

There are now several collection points throughout Frankston City, including a public collection point at the Frankston South Community & Recreation Centre. These collections assist Envision in their mission to collect 1 million plastic bottle tops.

Plastic bottle tops can also be recycled by removing them from bottles and placing them in your recycling bin at home.

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