The city of Albury community’s commitment to making a real difference to the environment was what led to the city winning top honours at the recent 2020 Sustainable Communities Tidy Towns Awards, says Mayor Kevin Mack.
The city was named overall winner of the NSW awards, recognising the community-wide efforts to lead the way in sustainability and environmental initiatives.
Albury City also won awards for its organics recovery operations, the Renewable Energy Hub at the Albury Waste Management Centre, its education program Halve Waste and infrastructure improvements at the Albury Waste Management Centre along with a highly commended for the Repair Café, which helps people to repair and recycle goods that would otherwise be thrown out.
Mayor Kevin Mack said the entire community deserved credit for achieving an amazing result.
“To be named the state’s Tidiest Town is a great honour for us all and is testament to our community’s willingness to embrace sustainability as the way forward for caring for our world,” he said.
“We’re proud to be at the forefront of innovation in the environmental sector as shown by reducing waste, generating renewable power, and recycling all sorts of products from old furniture through to kitchen waste, polystyrene, glass, paper and cardboard.
“This award also recognises our achievements in the natural environment space, including our heritage and wildlife programs, youth and community programs around environmental sustainability.
“We’re getting closer to achieving our aim of literally halving the amount of waste we bury in landfill – which will be a ground-breaking milestone – and that’s largely due to not only the Albury community, but also the people of our neighbouring council areas who are joining us on this journey.”
The win now puts Albury in the running for the National Award, which will be held in Beechworth this year, while the city has also won the right to host the next NSW Tidy Towns Award in November 2021.
“These awards are a marvellous endorsement of how Albury – with NSW’s fourth largest landfill – is working with our partners and neighbouring communities to make sustainability a central focus of our future,” Mayor Mack said.
“Generations to come will enjoy the benefits of this outstanding work so I’d like to thank our Councillors, staff, partners and everyone across the region for helping to bring about this remarkable success.”
