Bin Swap at Booran

Six residents live at our HomeChoices Booran house. They began the year with one 240L recycling bin and two 240L general waste bins.

In April, the residents and staff noticed that they are throwing away less general waste and are recycling more. So, they decided to see if they could just use one of the general waste bins. Three months later, they have had great success.

They now use only one general waste bin, and are using two recycling bins!

This is a fantastic achievement from everyone at Booran. Not only are they reducing their creation of waste and recycling more, but the cost of the second recycling bin is cheaper than the second general waste bin.

It was good timing too; their local council has just started a program to reduce the bin size for houses in the Glen Eira area to smaller 120L bins. With continued effort from the Booran household, maybe they too can eventually switch to a smaller bin!
 

Smart Meters 

The Smart Meters installation program began in Victorian homes in September 2009, and by the end of 2013 all homes should have them. Victoria is the first state in Australia to give the go-ahead for this statewide installation program.

Depending on where you live your smart meters may have been installed by your electricity distributor already. If not however, it is likely you will receive a letter from the electricity distributor to let you know when they’ll be in your area. You can check the below link for already installed and upcoming smart meter locations.

Smart meters are a new tool that will measure and record electricity use at different times of the day and week. Combining this with other tools will allow your electricity provider to read your meter remotely, as well as connect or disconnect your power supply or be alerted of a power failure.

As electricity users we will be able to understand more about when we use electricity, and how much we use. This will make it easier to change our behaviour and use less electricity – not to mention, save money.

Smart meters are a great step towards efficient electricity use and management in the future.

Click here for more information and fact sheets.

Click here if you would like to download this newsletter in PDF format.

In Other News

As they say, time flies when you are having fun - we are already more than half way through the first year of the SustainAbility Stars program. So, a big THANK YOU to everyone for their commitment and support of the SustainAbility project and for helping us achieve some great outcomes.

We are all in this together as we strive to:

• make sure that our HomeChoices services, and our organisation, leave a much smaller environmental footprint
• empower people with a disability to cope better with the impacts of climate change
• give HomeChoices residents and staff opportunities for community involvement and leadership.

If you have any feedback on the SustainAbility Stars program so far, please email sharon.chan@tipping.org.au

Worm Farm and Composting Posters

The compost and worm farm information posters are finally ready! To help staff and residents know what they should be putting in their compost bin or worm farm, we have created some easy-to-read posters.

If you would like a copy of these posters, email  sustainability@tipping.org.au and we will send you a link to download them.

SustainAbility Star-ter Kit

For more information about EW Tipping Foundation’s SustainAbility Project, the SustainAbility Stars program, or to download our free SustainAbility Star-ter Kit, go to www.tipping.org.au or email sustainability@tipping.org.au