Cardinia Shire Council - Annual Report 2017-18

Cardinia Shire Council Annual Report 2014–15 2017–18
2013–14 Year in review
• supported installation of a 5kW solar PV system
(17 panels) at Koo Wee Rup Senior Citizens through
a community capital works grant
• supported installation of a 5kW solar PV system
(17 panels) at Cockatoo Kindergarten through a
community capital works grant
• LED lighting upgrades at Pakenham Library, Hall and
U3A and Koo Wee Rup Outdoor Pool
• upgraded the building management system at
Cardinia Life for monitoring water use.
Cardinia Shire Council’s Civic Centre in Officer achieved
a five-star Green Star Rating (office as built v3) from the
Green Building Council of Australia, the national authority
on sustainable buildings, communities and cities. The
Civic Centre’s design and construction is a prime example
of forward planning and strikes a balance between
sustainability and cost efficiency. We are also working
on updating our environmentally sustainable design
tool, which specifies sustainable design requirements
for Council buildings, and are developing a sustainable
building design and operation policy for Council buildings.
These items provide financial and environmental benefits
for Council and the local community.
In other initiatives, we delivered residential energy
assessments to 22 householders in partnership with
the South East Councils’ Climate Change Alliance,
implemented a trial Solar Savers Program to enable
eligible pensioner households to install solar systems with
no upfront costs, and published five editions of our Down
to Earth environmental eNewsletter for our community.
Managing our waste and recycling
In 2017–18, Council continued to achieve increases in
resource recovery in our biannual green waste and hard
waste contract, now at 31 per cent. In conjunction with
the Metropolitan Waste and Resource Recovery Group
and other councils, we commenced a feasibility study into
alternative waste and resource recovery technologies to
landfill for south-east Melbourne. We also negotiated a
contract extension for garbage and recycling collection
to include eight refurbished replacement vehicles in the
fleet, significant savings, and new targets to help with the
ongoing growth of our shire.
In the past two years, the illegal dumping of rubbish
across Cardinia Shire has unfortunately increased from
60 cases per month to more than 100 cases per month
on average. While Council has achieved efficiencies in
handling dumped rubbish, it still comes at a cost to our
shire, both financially and environmentally. In a jointly
funded initiative with Sustainability Victoria, Council
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