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Monday, 03 October 2011 13:34 |
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| Sustainable Island Community Preserving Pristine Whitsundays |
| Hamilton Island (www.hamiltonisland.com.au) on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is leading the way in sustainable island living with a new waste management and recycling facility, saving thousands of dollars in shipping material back to the mainland for processing and providing a template for environmental excellence. |
The new waste management and recycling facility includes a glass crushing plant to process the waste glass containers discarded by the thousands of visitors to the Island’s resorts each year. At the same time, the plant provides a local use for recycled crushed glass, negating the need to transport the material to the mainland at great economic and environmental expense.
Following the success of the glass crushing plant, the Island has now also put in place a baler for plastic containers, cans, paper and cardboard.
The recycled crushed glass is used on Hamilton Island for drainage projects and on garden beds, saving around AU$10,000 per tonne in the cost of shipping material back to the mainland for processing.
Recycled crushed glass can be used in many applications including drainage and pipe bedding as well as a replacement for sand, reducing the extraction of virgin sand and helping to preserve the Whitsunday Islands’ pristine environment.
 The glass crushing plant is a partnership between Hamilton Island, the Australian Food and Grocery Council’s Packaging Stewardship Forum (PSF) and the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM).
In another recent sustainability initiative, Hamilton Island signed an exclusive contract with Queensland fisherman, Matt Fitzgerald, who won the tender to supply the island with fresh, locally caught fish, unloading 16 boats working around Hamilton Island and delivering the fish himself. He guarantees that the gap between ‘hooking and cooking’ will be no more than 24 hours. This breaks a growing trend for seafood to make its way directly to Australia’s major cities where demand is high.
Background Information:
- Hamilton Island is one of 74 islands in the Whitsundays
- It is surrounded by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, a World Heritage area
- It is one of only seven developed islands in the Whitsundays
- It is 5kms north to south and 3.5kms east to west
- 70% of Hamilton Island is natural protected bushland
- There are no cars on Hamilton Island, guests get around by golf buggy
- Hamilton Island is a short direct flight from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Cairns
- Hamilton Island has been privately owned by the Oatley family since 2003
- There are over 20 shops and 10 restaurants on Hamilton Island with most of the food for the latter being sourced from within Queensland
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