The South West town of Greenbushes is celebrating being selected as the winner of the Keep Australia Beautiful Tidy Towns Sustainable Communities Awards for 2016.
After being a finalist in several categories over a 20-year journey of entering the Tidy Town’s Awards, the town’s Tidy Towns committee has expressed great pride in being selected as this year’s overall winner.
The small town has been chosen as the award winner for its efforts in environmental education and recognising its mining and timber milling heritage.
It has also been notably recognised for minimising the use of plastic bottles and creating a wetland.
The town’s community garden with its monthly morning teas and crop swaps, the Blackwood Basin Group’s Waterbird Project, highway sculptures, and the Tidy Towns School Bush Block restoration project were among the initiatives to help get the town over the line in the 2016 awards.
Tidy Towns judges highlighted the town’s careful collection of volunteer hours with 424 volunteers putting in around 14,291 hours of work on community projects in 2015.
Greenbushes Tidy Towns committee coordinator Leonie Eastcott said the Greenbushes win was proof that small towns could be an inspiration for others if people worked together.
“Last year we had one of our largest regional cities, Albany, win the state title and this year our small community of around 600 people has been selected to represent Western Australia,” she said.
“It will be a great boost to our community and a recognition that everything we do, whether it’s a large project or something simple in our own backyard, can make a difference and we can lead by example,” Ms Eastcott said.
She said entering the awards over a long period of time had driven great changes in the town’s environment and cultural development.
“We have an amazing community garden in our town centre and the genesis of that project actually came from a comment made by a Tidy Towns judge who visited our town about nine or 10 years ago.”
Ms Eastcott said the awards had also provided an impetus for the town to strive to achieve improvements in the community.
If we look back at our very first portfolios from the Tidy Towns Awards we can see a great deal of progress over the years across many facets of our community with an increasing emphasis on sustainability. We can see our history in these portfolios and it gives us faith in our future.
- – Leonie Eastcott, Greenbushes Tidy Towns committee coordinator
Greenbushes Community Garden coordinator Tracy Lansdell said the awards had evolved to encompass projects and initiatives with a focus on environmental sustainability and resource management to reflect a growing awareness of the importance of community-led environmental action.
“The Tidy Towns name has always been synonymous with community pride, cohesion and above all community action and they encourage, motivate and celebrate the sustainability achievements of grassroots rural and regional communities across Australia,” Ms Lansdell said.
“To be sustainable and a thriving community it takes input and cooperation from everyone involved and I am grateful to our hard working volunteers and groups for making this win possible.
“These awards celebrate the innovation, hard work and achievements of individuals, community groups, schools, businesses and government who are taking positive steps towards improving their local environment.”
Greenbushes will represent WA in the National Awards at Triabunna in Tasmania next March.
National judges will visit the town late in 2016.
Environment Minister Albert Jacob said Greenbushes’ achievements reflected the town’s community spirit and commitment to environment conservation, education programs and sustainable living.
“Out of a population of about 600 people, more than 400 volunteered their time to contribute to some outstanding sustainability initiatives – that’s a remarkable effort,” Mr Jacob said.
The judges remarked on the success of Greenbushes’ Water Without Waste project, which deters people from buying bottled water by providing filtered tap water in a portable tank at community events.
“The mobile water station has been a great success and has helped spread the message about the importance of reducing plastic use,” the Minister said.
Tidy Towns judges highlighted Greenbushes’ biodiversity project, which has seen seven hectares of wetland created on a former mining site.
More than 1000 volunteer hours went in to revegetating the area and creating habitat for native species.
“Birds and a variety of mammal species have thrived at the wetland so it is a powerful example of what a community can achieve with a united vision,” Mr Jacob said.
The judges were also impressed by the installation of two striking sculptures made out of recycled materials that were installed on the South Western Highway approaches to the town.
