A stall in Stawell - adventures on corrugated dirt tracks, at the Stawell Easter festival and with emergency angle-grinding Big Bottle frame-fixing
Our local hero and host, John Pye, the President of the Stawell Urban Landcare Group, got us and our mate Leigh Ewbank from Friends of the Earth a great spot on the very busy Stawell Easter Festival. Locals and blow-ins came readily up to us wanting to chat about how they can help affect the challenges of climate change and plastic pollution. Hundreds signed our petition to demand container deposit legislation. There was a nice long fence near us that could do with some beautification, so we hung up the gorgeous "10 cent solution to marine pollution" banner. This banner once travelled from Sydney to Darwin and there's a very interesting book full of people's notes and ideas that catalogued that trip.
The sitting MP, Louise Staley, initially declined to meet with me, but her stall was 30 m from the Big Bottle, so I successfully cornered her. She said that she is in principle for a CDS and that her party, the NLP, are working on a policy in relation to container refunds. We encouraged locals to make sure Louise knows how important the implementation of a refund scheme is to them and to keep up the pressure to have words transform into action.
Sarah De Santis, the local ALP candidate, and I had an extensive talk about CDS. She had some concerns about the costs of the scheme implementation (citing that old and refuted Impact Statement) but we both agreed that in light of China refusing co-mingled recyclates that CDS was an attractive option to deal with the recycling crisis and she welcomed the Big Bottle into town, see this video:
Tomorrow is the Stawell gift and we hope to catch some of the action. We also wrestled up some locals to do a clean up on London Rd tomorrow. Starting at 11 am, we will clean a 1 km stretch of road outside of Stawell (town entry sign on the rock), near Maelor Monumental. If you are about, please come and join us - we have safety vests, gloves and litter bags.
As I write this, John and Travis are doing some emergency metal (not plastic!) surgery and reconstruction of the framing inside the Big Bottle. Turns out that corrugated track we ended up on by mistake yesterday did some damage. Brackets got broken and bolts got busted. But fear not - the Big Bottle couldn't be in better hands - I can see actual sparks flying! This will be fixed proper country style, so it can last for the entirety of the tour and beyond!
All the best,
Annett and the rest of the Big Bottle tour gang!
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10 cent Solution to Marine Pollution
Travis talking to people about cds
