Sustainability to be major focus of 2023 Ballarat Begonia Festival

As the City of Ballarat aims to reduce its environmental footprint generated when hosting major events, sustainability will be the major focus during its Begonia Festival this year - Council aims to make it the most sustainable Begonia Festival yet.

Aligning closely with Goal 1 of the Council Plan 2021-2025: An environmentally sustainable future, this year the City of Ballarat will undertake many initiatives to ensure as little waste as possible becomes landfill.

At the 2020 Begonia Festival (the most recent festival in the traditional format due to the pandemic), more than 4000 kilograms of waste was created, highlighting the importance of effective waste management.

City of Ballarat Councillor, Cr Belinda Coates, said it was integral that everybody played their part to eliminate landfill as much as possible.

Cr Coates advises “as a Council we’ve always had a strong focus on sustainability, but there’s always more that can be done.

“That’s why this year we’re taking things to a whole new level and we’re really excited to be having all the Ballarat people who come to the festival, as well as the visitors, jump on board with us and make this the most sustainable Begonia Festival yet.”

What is City of Ballarat doing?

The City of Ballarat is undertaking a range of initiatives at the 2023 Ballarat Begonia Festival to not only reduce the amount of landfill that is created, but to also create a more effective circular economy, including:

• Dividing waste into five collection streams: landfill, recycling, organics and glass at designated waste stations, and a designated cardboard collection for stallholders and vendors.

• Each waste station will be staffed by two City of Ballarat environmental and waste staff, who will be on hand to support the community to demonstrate how the future of recycling and waste disposal in Ballarat could work.

• Ensuring all packaging sold from food vendors and stallholders is recyclable or compostable, including the banning of all single-use plastic products such as drink bottles and plastic cutlery.

• All organic waste from the festival will go to a nearby worm farm, where it will get repurposed as compost and used as worm food.

• Using local company ‘GroundUp Coffee Recyclers’ to collect the used coffee grounds from the coffee vendors to then be delivered to regenerative and small-scale farmers in the Ballarat region.

• Their Circular Economy team will be onsite to gather feedback on the future of kerbside waste and recycling service options. At a time when the City of Ballarat is revolutionising its kerbside waste collection system, these staff will be able to answer questions about the forthcoming changes and work closely with the community to achieve the best results in waste management.

• Their Sustainable Environment team will be at the festival to chat about biodiversity priorities across Ballarat.

What can festival attendees do?

In addition to these City of Ballarat initiatives, festival goers are also encouraged to do their bit in reducing the environmental impact, including:

• Choose Tap: Bring your own reusable drink bottle; fill it up for free at one of the water points in the gardens; or purchase an aluminum drink bottle from the community partner Central Highlands Water and ‘choose tap’ when having a drink of water. All proceeds from the bottle sales go to Central Highlands Water’s selected community organisation

• Bring your own shopping bags

• Bring your own keep cup for tea and/or coffee

• Have a chat to friendly City of Ballarat environmental and waste staff at the waste stations or their information marquee at the festival.

• Place rubbish in the appropriate bins provided to support our circular economy.

• Engage with environmental and waste staff and discuss any queries you might have.

The Ballarat Begonia Festival returns over the Labour Day long weekend, Saturday 11th to Monday 13th March, 10am – 5pm.

Image. Credit: City of Ballarat