Collaboration to effectively tackle litter across our Moonee Ponds Creek catchment
The Chain of Ponds Collaboration (CoP) has identified litter and rubbish dumping as a catchment-wide issue for Moonee Ponds Creek, and litter education and urban renewal as opportunities to transform the Creek (Chain of Ponds Prospectus).
A Litter Working Group was formed in June 2019 to identify actions the group could implement and/or advocate for – to address the litter issue.
CoP’s Litter Action Project aims to reduce the incidence and impact of litter at its source. The hiring of a Project Leader will support the planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of the following activities:
- Development and implementation of an education/behaviour change program to reduce the impacts of street litter and polystyrene in Moonee Ponds Creek
- Working with councils and agencies to identify and implement actions required to address the local and regional litter “hotspots” which were identified in the recent Moonee Ponds Litter Assessment (Alluvium, 2021)
- Advocate for waste reduction and litter management at all levels of government
- Coordination of the current Litter Working Group
- Ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the litter working groups activities and outputs
- Project reporting.
Themes and Local Areas
| Primary Theme: | Waterways |
| Other Themes: | Coasts, Estuaries, Marine Environments, Communities |
| Primary Local Area: | Urban Melbourne |
| Other Local Areas: | Macedon Ranges, Hume, Mitchell & Whittlesea, Port Phillip Bay |
| Project location: | The Moonee Ponds Creek catchment is one of Melbourne’s most urbanised and modified creek systems. The Creek drains an area of approximately 145 square kilometres. The catchment extends from Greenvale through parts of Broadmeadows, Glenroy, Essendon and Moonee Ponds, before flowing southward through Flemington, Kensington, North and West Melbourne into the Yarra River. The creek supports a wide variety of birds and animals and provides an important corridor connecting woodlands, wetlands and riparian zones from its origins near Oaklands Junction to its tidal reaches closer to the Yarra River. In an effort to address litter at its source, many of our proposed activities to improve the incidents of litter in the creek will include multiple litter “hotspot” locations across Hume City Council, Moreland City Council, Moonee Valley City Council, and Melbourne City Council. The recent Moonee Ponds Litter assessment report provides a detailed list of all “hotspot” locations. Some location examples include: Roxburgh Park train station and shopping centre (Hume), Sydney Road shopping precinct (Moreland), Cross Keys oval and Reserve (Moonee Valley), and Macaulay industrial precinct (Melbourne). |
| Scale of the project: | Local |
| New or continuing work: | Continuing/building on previous work |
Project partners
| Lead organisation: | Chain of Ponds Collaboration |
| Key partners: | Members of the Litter Working Group include: Moreland City Council, Melbourne Water, WaterWatch, Friends of Moonee Ponds Creek, Kensington Association, Hume City Council, Greater Western Water, Living Colour Studio, Metropolitan Waste and Resource Recovery Group, and City of Melbourne. |
| Registered Aboriginal Party/s relevant to the project or its area: | Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation |
Investment opportunities
| Opportunities for investors within this project start from: | $$ (Tens of thousands of dollars) |
| Estimated scale of investment for full project implementation: | $$$ (Hundreds of thousands of dollars) |
| Estimated timeframe for full project implementation: | 2-10 years |
Contribution toward targets
| Primary Regional Catchment Strategy target: | Waterway amenity – Achieve an average score for waterway amenity of VERY HIGH for the Yarra catchment. |
| Relevant Biodiversity 2037 goal: | Support people take action for nature |
| Relevant National Landcare Program priority: | – |
