KooyongKoot Alliance (KKA) is working to reduce rubbish and pollution in our creeks.
Mark Landmann
The KooyongKoot Alliance (KKA) is a not-for-profit community-based organisation comprising some 24 Friends Groups in the Gardiners Creek/KooyongKoot Catchment, from Blackburn Lake to the Yarra, who work together to heal the KooyongKoot, its waterways and ecosystems.
Since our inception in 2020, in our efforts to reduce litter and pollution the waterways, we have
- held more than 30 Clean Up Australia Day events;
- staged two Clean Waterways Expos with impressive speakers and significant community and stakeholder group representation; and
- represented the community on the Gardiner Creek/KooyongKoot Regional Collaboration. The 14 key stakeholders (including five Councils) of the Collaboration have developed a strategic plan for the catchment. Litter and water quality management are key elements of the plan.
KKA Clean Waterways Subcommittee
Crucially, we have also formed the KKA Clean Waterways Subcommittee. This group has been developing systematic strategies and processes to consistently reduce litter in public spaces and thereby reduce litter entering streams in the KooyongKoot (Gardiners Creek) Catchment and ultimately the lower Yarra River and the bay.
The KKA Clean Waterways Subcommittee’s objectives are to work with communities, businesses and statutory bodies to implement targeted education programs to reduce litter at source; and to develop ‘replicable’ ongoing litter and data collection programs on the ground throughout the catchment.
By ‘replicable’ we mean we are creating a multi-faceted model for reducing litter and pollution that can be broadly applied in many hotspots throughout our catchment.
An important part of this is actual on-the-ground litter collection and recording of data. We are pleased to announce that, with the kind support of Whitehorse City Council, we have now commenced clean-up activities in a known litter generation and accumulation hotspot in Box Hill. Through consultation with various agencies, we will help local businesses and residents understand how litter and pollution move from streets to drains to waterways
If you are interested in our work in any way and/or would like to become involved in any capacity, please
- call Mark on 0408 354 070, Graham on 0407 046 358; or
- email CWSC@kka.org.au
Reducing the incessant accumulation of litter in our precious waterways requires us as a community to think and act locally and holistically.
The KooyongKoot Alliance (KKA) is expanding to reduce litter in our creeks. Can you help us grow?
Mark Landmann
The not-for-profit community-based organisation, KooyongKoot Allaince (KKA) comprises some 24 Friends Groups in the Gardiners Creek (KooyongKoot) Catchment. It has established a Clean Waterways Team to develop processes to reduce litter that flows via stormwater drains from streets to the creek into the Yarra River and ultimately Port Phillip Bay.
The Clean Waterways Team’s objectives are to develop replicable, ongoing litter and data collection programs on the ground throughout the catchment.
By replicable we mean that we are creating a template for reducing litter and pollution that can be broadly applied in many litter hotspots throughout our catchment. Litter hotspots are often shopping strips, industrial areas, sporting fields, or places near creeks in which litter accumulates.
Part of this template will be to work with communities, businesses and statutory bodies to implement targeted education programs to reduce litter at source.
Another important component is actual on-the-ground litter collection and recording of data. We have now registered NINE sites along or feeding into Gardiners Creek, from Blackburn Lake near the headwaters of Gardiners Creek, to lower Ashburton near Glen Iris.
What makes this on-the-ground work so meaningful – and, dare we say, exciting! – is that it fits neatly into the first funded Flagship Project in the brand new Gardiners Creek Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan is a landmark document produced over some five years by the Gardiners Creek Regional Collaboration (GCRC), comprised of fourteen stakeholders including the KKA, five municipal Councils, Deakin University and Melbourne Water, with oversight by Wurrundjeri Traditional Owners.
A key recent step under this Flagship Project has been GCRC’s engagement of consultants to map the catchment’s main litter generation and accumulation hotspots, as well as various litter infrastructure and assets, in a cutting-edge Geographic Information System (GIS). This GIS is a live system which will receive litter and pollution data from groups like us for years to come.
So, while going out with a group of friendly, like-minded folks to collect litter and enter the data into an app is nice and simple, the beauty of our seat at the Collaboration and our access to the GIS is that our envisioned little army of de-litterers will not only rid our environment of litter, but in so doing will build a true map of these problems to give lawmakers every opportunity to make necessary institutional change in the future.
We’re pleased to have grown our network so we can collect litter on occasions at these nine sites and log the data in the Litter Stopper app. This is, however, just the beginning of our journey: we do need to build that little army of people working with the common aim of creating litter-free urban environments and, indeed, clean waterways.
Our initial efforts have just scratched the surface. For example, 30 kilograms of mainly soft plastic and small items and around 2000 cigarette butts were collected during our first five fortnightly cleans by a small band of volunteers at our shopping-strip ‘alpha-site’ in Box Hill. That’s 30 kilos of rubbish and 2000 cigarette butts that will never see our waterways, with lots more to follow.
If you are interested in our work in any way and/or would like to become involved in any capacity, please feel free to call Mark on 0408 354 070, Graham on 0407 046 358, or email cwsc@kka.org.au
Reducing the incessant accumulation of litter in our precious waterways requires us as a community to think and act both locally and holistically.