Making for a more sustainable festive season

By Maria Tarrant

The year is fast coming to an end, bringing with it various events and celebrations. You may be thinking about how to make them more sustainable. This is an ideal time to ask yourself, “can I reduce, reuse, repair or recycle as I participate in various events and celebrations?”

For example, if you need to buy gifts, look for gifts made from recycled materials and locally sourced. Visit the many local Op Shops as a source of goods to be repurposed. Look for alternatives to battery-operated toys. Such an approach is not only good for the environment, but can be a lot less expensive.

As the year comes to a close, changes are also afoot at the community garden at the Boyd Community Hub. Over the next couple of months developers will be moving onto the site at the corner of Kings Way and Kavanagh St which includes the basketball court and rear orchard garden behind Boyd. 

As a result, we will lose access to the rear garden space. We will have to scale back our community garden as the council is not able to provide an alternative location.

We have been in discussions with staff from the City of Melbourne about this situation. The council is arranging for the relocation of many of the smaller planter boxes to the front of the Boyd Community Hub. We will be able to continue to plant these with plenty of vegetables and herbs in time for summer.

We are also in discussions with council staff about how best to progress the community composting project Southbank Sustainability Group is to undertake with financial assistance from the council. With the arrival of the developers, the sites initially chosen for the composting equipment will no longer be available. Once arrangements are finalised, we will post an update on the Southbank Sustainability Group Facebook page.

Southbank Sustainability Group will be one of the many community groups participating in Southbank’s first ever Very Merry Friend-Mas event to be held on Saturday, December 10 from 11am to 3pm at Boyd. The day is being organised by Southbank3006 in partnership with City of Melbourne for all Southbankers. There will be plenty of fun events throughout the day for all ages.

The Southbank Sustainability Group continues to meetup fortnightly on Saturday, November 3 and 19 between 10am and noon for some gardening, food harvesting, conversation and planning for 2023. These meetups are open to all.

About the group

Southbank Sustainability Group is a solution-focussed community group of Southbank residents working to bring positive change in sustainability practices. Reach us at [email protected] or facebook.com/SouthbankSustainabilityGroup. 

If you are interested in getting involved with Southbank Sustainability Group, send us an email or come to one of the upcoming meetups. •