One minute read
The editorial of the New Scientist magazine dated 28/10/23, showcased the beautiful state in Australia where I live! How proud am I!
Although we have the smallest population of the Australian mainland, South Australia is a leader on many environmental fronts.
And we’ve been doing this for ages. KESAB, or Keep South Australia Beautiful, has been “Creating sustainable communities through education, action and participation since 1966”. You can find out more of what they do at https://www.kesab.asn.au/.
In 1977, South Australia introduced a container deposit scheme. Bottles and cans carry a 10-cent deposit which is reclaimed when the container is taken to a recycling depot. Although it was a resounding success, the scheme didn’t take off anywhere else in Australia until the Northern Territory joined us in 2012.
In 2009, SA was the first to implement a plastic bag ban, which meant plastic bags were not given out for free at supermarkets, and it was the first to implement a single use plastics ban, such as banning plastic straws and cutlery, in 2021.
But all of this is the icing on the cake. The reason why we were covered by New Scientist was because of our incredible renewable energy.
Talk about turning misfortune into gold … In 2016, we endured a state-wide black-out after a massive storm. It was chaos, no mobile phone coverage, traffic lights out! In response our then Premier commissioned a Big Battery from Tesla. South Australians have put on a heap of rooftop solar, narrowly pipped by Queensland for most per capita, and we run on renewables most of the time.
What a great place to live!
Joni Page 