Cairns Regional Council, QLD

young students and teachers together to hear their aspirations, hopes, fears and suggestions on climate issues. Attendees reported back to Council on their goals and, according to Manning, “It was incredibly constructive and so reassuring to bring a group of young people together, where they must be very doubtful and questioning where things are going with the climate globally. They wanted to get a message across, they wanted to know that we care, that we were interested. And we all came away from that a lot smarter and a lot closer together.” At the Cairns International Women’s Day breakfast in 2018, 10-year-old Molly Steer received the Cairns Young International Woman of the Year award for starting the ‘Straw No More’ campaign in an effort to eliminate single use plastics, the most abused of which are drinking straws. In her acceptance speech, she challenged Mayor Manning to pick up the Straw No More campaign from her. Eager to take up the gauntlet, the Mayor stood up and promised that the Council would work with her and promptly took the issue to the Queensland State conference which resulted in 77 Councils all agreeing to take on this challenge. Cairns Regional Council is on track to meet its emissions target of reduction of 50% by 2020 and seeking to set a new target of 100 percent renewable energy. Power Purchasing Agreements (for renewables) and carbon farming projects are being investigated as possible options to achieve the goal. Also on the sustainability front, a $14.5 million upgrade to the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) will allow Council to address its recycling needs for the next decade. The upgrade will bolster the MRF’s processing capacity and boost the amount of waste diverted from landfill from 50-60% to 85-90%. It will also double the MRF’s processing capacity to 30,000 tonnes a year, while new, state-of-the-art technology will streamline the facility’s sorting capabilities. A glass sorting and processing plant will be delivered as part of the upgrade, allowing Council to recycle glass locally. Glass will be crushed and cleaned on site, then repurposed as a sand substitute in non-structural concrete works, such as kerb and channelling, footpaths and cycle paths. The new infrastructure will increase the facility’s viability, improve recycling recovery rates and decrease the amount of waste ending up in landfill. The Regional Council abides by the philosophy that if you get the finances right then everything else will follow. True to form, this will be the sixth year that Council has handed down rate rises at or below CPI, while delivering a total of $870 million in Capital Works over that time – this coming year that number will exceed the $1 billion mark. Debt per capita in Cairns is the fourth lowest among 15 similar-sized Councils in the State. The Council has also handed down balanced budgets since 2013 and delivered surpluses in operating expenditure over the past six budget cycles. The latest budget also partially funds major projects to attract locals and tourists, including: the $3.6 million completion of the Court House refurbishment as part of the broader Gallery Precinct (in the CBD), and commencement of a major upgrade to the Esplanade Dining Precinct and Stage 3 of the Shields Street project, with CAIRNS’ LEADING CIVIL ENGINEERING COMPANY 14 Adelaide Street, Manunda, Cairns, Queensland, 4870 (07) 4081 8900 www.ldiconstructions.com.au SUBDIVISIONS / ROADWORKS / INFRASTRUCTURE LOCAL COMPANY ESTABLISHED OVER 20 YEARS! PROUD SPONSOR OF LOCAL COMMUNITY SPORTING AND CULTURAL GROUPS CA I RNS REGIONAL COUNC I L , QLD Nicole Nash, Molly Steer, and Mayor Manning from the Last Straw movement Mayor Manning and Nicole Nash Materials Recovery Facility Youth Climate Summit