Breaking news – we have been successful in a partnership program bid through the Moonee Valley Council’s Flood Recovery program.

This Climate Resilient Community project aims to boost the capacity of MVS to help the Moonee Valley community prepare for increased flooding, extreme weather events and other climate impacts.

We are partnering with The Adaption Game (TAG) Pty to design, pilot and launch a Moonee Valley TAG and a build network of trained community facilitators equipped to engage with residents, groups and communities through workshops and conversation, developing connection and localised solutions for a more resilient Moonee Valley.

Stay tuned for the roll out. . .

Our Annual General Meeting was held in early September. This year we kept it short and sweet with a hybrid model held in-person and online. Our financials our sound, our governance is strengthened and our activities continue to be many and varied. Read the details in our annual report here: MVS ANNUAL REPORT

To progress our agenda and meet MVS goals, we have been advocating for policy change and priority funding to decision-makers in government, business, industry, and community.

This year has seen us extend our campaign work to the State and Federal arena, as well as growing our strong advocacy at the local level. The following lists the

Meetings with Elected Representatives & Officials

• Office of the Member for Niddrie & Deputy Premier  Ben Carroll  re Building Electrification
• Member for Essendon  Danny Pearson re Building Electrification & Maribyrnong Park 
• Candidate for Maribyrnong,  Jo Briskey   re waterways, energy and homes 
• MVCC CEO  Helen Sui  & Director Strategy, Planning & Climate Resilience  Simon Overland  re climate-safety
• Various formal & informal discussions with MVCC Councillors and Officers 

Detailed Written Submissions

• Moonee Valley City Council Budget 2025/26 
• Waterways Planning Scheme Submission 

Letters & Correspondence

• Supporting the rollout of the Container Deposit Scheme 
• Fencing at Boeing Reserve, Strathmore
• Caring for Country at Five Mile Creek, Essendon
• Montgomery Park Redevelopment, Essendon

Volunteers were out in full force for National Tree Day. We had a wonderful morning down at Afton Street Conservation Reserve. Shout out to Moonee Valley City Council for organising such a well run event. There were 6000 plants put into the ground – a stellar effort by Moonee Valley community. At our stall we chatted to lots of people about our work and were so excited to see people really taking time to care for Country. Afton Street Conservation Reserve just keeps getting better!

Water is Love: Ripples of Regeneration

In July we ran our first film night at Dwell. It was a great community event that provided people with a chance to see an inspiring film about how recognising the role of water in the climate crisis can really turn things around. Afterwards we had a thought provoking discussion and shared our responses. The evening was made extra special by the popcorn and cake!

If you missed the night you can view the film HERE by making a donation to the film makers.

We are encouraging everyone to get involved in Biketober Moonee Valley – a free, council-supported challenge designed to get more people riding, more often.

Register for free at Love To Ride Moonee Valley to log your rides (Strava can be auto synced), sign up your workplace, earn points and win prizes including $4000 holiday, $1000 early bird cash prize, spa, sport, coffee and lunch vouchers and many more!

Let’s use clean transport to get around!

> Email Peter at activetransport@mvsustainability.org.au to find out more or get involved.

As part of our Electrify Moonee Valley project, we’re co-hosting Dr Saul Griffith on Friday 17 October 2025 as he launches Plug In: The Electrification Handbook. Come along to the Richmond Town Hall to hear how we can ensure electrification happens faster & fairer. Register for your free tickets today.

We are also on the lookout for volunteers to help out with events, promotion, campaigns, surveys, graphics and mapping. If you want to be part of creating a brighter future, we’d love to hear from you.

> Email Supriya at supriya@mvsustainability.org.au to find out more or get involved.

Some amazing volunteers continued our Coolscaping project at Dwell by transforming a weedy garden bed into a glorious haven for native plants and hopefully native insects and animals! It’s all part of the MVS dream of making Dwell a climate-safe space.

Shout out to our Dwell hosts for lovely morning tea and lunch! Plus thanks so much to Joel from Vale Living for preparing the ground for us with some cool fire work! Many hands make light work.

> Email Logan at logan@mvsustainability.org.au to find out more or get involved.

Our Waste Not Hub is now well established as an event on the second Saturday of the month. It focuses on textile and food waste, running monthly mending circles, clothes swaps, food swaps, and material collections.

In other activities, we met with the MVCC waste team 3 times, successfully lobbied for bin fairies at the MV Festival and piloted a Container Deposit Scheme (CDS) collection at The Palms apartments (Feb–Jun), raising $110. We continue to engage with TOMRA and Council to improve CDS access across the municipality.

We have also been collecting knowledge on all the local ways in which we can reduce, reuse, repair our materials and have populated a great resource called the Online Waste Not Hub on our MVS website.

> Email Teresa at teresa@mvsustainability.org.au or Veronica at veronica@mvsustainability.org.au to find out more or get involved.

The problem of contamination in your bin

To ensure your recycling doesn’t end up in landfill, the items you put in your bin need to be relatively clean.

Most mechanical recycling systems struggle when food and other residues are present and even one spoiled item can ruin an entire cycling batch.

How much pre-cleaning depends on the type of packaging being recycled:

Paper and cardboard

• Must be clean and dry – no exceptions.
• If it gets wet or greasy, it can’t be recycled (though it may be compostable, eg. Pizza boxes).
• If it has a plastic coating, it can’t be recycled

Glass and metals

The recycling process for these can tolerate a bit of residue, but too much residue can contaminate paper and cardboard in your bin. So rinse to remove any visible food and put it DRY your bin.

Plastics

Rinse plastics before putting them in the bin. MVCC yellow bins take plastic types 1,2 and 5 – all other plastics go in the red bin. 

Again, put into your bin DRY to avoid your paper and cardboard getting wet.

Ref: https://theconversation.com/can-a-pizza-box-go-in-the-yellow-bin-or-not-an-expert-answers-this-and-other-messy-recycling-questions-258301

The past couple of months we have been focused on helping our community green their nature strips. With support from a Moonee Valley City Council grant, we partnered with Emma Cutting from the Heartscapes Gardening Project  to  develop resources promoting Council’s new nature strip guidelines.

You can now access these resources on our Nature Strip Gardening webpage. Emma also delivered a well-received talk on creating and caring for street gardens.

We also connected with Mel from Brunswick Communities for Nature and Tom from TreeProject to support local  ‘Backyard Greenscaping’  efforts.

> Email Angela at angela@mvsustainability.org.au to find out more or get involved.

We would love to hear from you! There are many ways to get involved with your local community through MVS.

• Come along to an MVS event and chat with us
• Email us at info@mvsustainability.org.au
• Head on over to our  Membership page to become a member
• Fill out our Volunteer  form to let us know how you can help / get involved
• Join our Moonee Valley Sustainability Forum Facebook group
• Follow our Moonee Valley Sustainability Facebook page
• Follow Moonee Valley Sustainability on Instagram

Until next time…

Yours Sustainably