Funding for Kids Helping Kids Green Teams project

24/12/98

The Kids Helping Kids Green Teams Project, a registered Clean Up Australia 2001 program, will receive $7,500 to run a pilot program to reduce school waste.

Environment Minister Cheryl Edwardes today announced grants of nearly $1 million for 35 projects from the Waste Management and Recycling Fund.

Western Australia's first environmental fund is financed by a landfill levy which came into force on July 1 this year, and is used to sponsor innovative recycling and waste reduction projects throughout the State.

The Kids Helping Kids concept has been operating for more than three years. It developed as a result of a handful of Western Australian students attending a United Nations children's environmental conference in the UK several years ago.

The students held their own State environmental conference in WA in 1996 (Kids Helping Kids) and created a network of students throughout the State working on local environmental projects (Green Teams).

The $7,500 grant has been provided from the public education and promotion category of the Waste Management and Recycling Fund to assist a Green Teams project targeted at reducing waste from the schools waste stream.

The pilot program has the potential to be replicated in other schools.

Five schools will participate in a pilot program involving worm farming and composting.

This will reduce waste to landfill and eliminate food waste from schools' waste streams.

The project will provide support to staff and students for 12 months, assisting with sourcing technical advice and resources.

The Green Team project will be required to report findings to the 1999 Kids Helping Kids WA children's environmental conference that attracts WA, interstate and overseas delegates.

Mrs Edwardes congratulated the successful applicants who will share in $915,316 of Waste Management and Recycling Fund grants. This round of grants brings the total amount of funding provided this year to nearly $1 million.

"Each year, an expected $4 million raised from the levy will provide financial assistance to local communities, industry and local government with new and innovative ideas on reducing or recycling all types of waste," she said.

"I believe this fund is an incentive to Western Australians who are dedicated to recycling and waste reduction. It will help provide the impetus to reduce the State's waste by half.

"The quality of the applications received by the Advisory Council on Waste Management supports this. Generally grants are made on a dollar-for-dollar basis."

The advisory council selected 35 successful grant applicants in the following six categories:

·      waste classification and information;

·      regional recycling;

·      cleaner production and industrial waste reduction;

·      recycling and waste processing industry development;

·      public education and promotion; and -

·      State co-ordination of local government recycling and waste reduction.

An additional category, municipal recycling services, will be included in the 1999 funding grants. This will provide a performance-based incentive to support local government kerbside collection systems.

The levy applies to landfill sites in the Perth metropolitan area and is costed at $3 per tonne for domestic and commercial waste going to putrescible landfill and $1 per tonne for inert waste from the building and construction industry going to inert landfill. It is paid by all those who generate waste and use landfill sites.

Grant applications are invited every six months. The next grant round will be advertised on January 9, and will be open for a six-week application period. Application forms and details are available from the DEP by telephoning (08) 9476 7407.

Media contact: Nicole Trigwell 9421 7777