19 AUGUST, 2025
Kangaroo great Anthony Stevens writes exclusively for Star Weekly 12790528-JD33-25
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Learn about tasty food Melton locals can learn everything they have ever wanted to know about food – from growing to eating and enjoying – at this year’s City of Melton Learning Festival. The festival runs from August 30-September 13 at libraries and community centres across the municipality. There will author talks, workshops, including a kids gardening workshop, DIY crafts and demonstrations. Mayor Steve Abboushi said the festival is the perfect opportunity to try something new. “Food crosses cultures and languages to connect and nourish us, and this year’s festival theme offers a range of wonderful activities for all ages and abilities to get involved in,” he said. The festival kicks off on Saturday, August 30 with a free event at Melton Library & Learning Hub. Explore the full program and book your place at melton. vic.gov.au/LearningFestival
Jono Ingram and Carolyn Pemberton will be running a kids gardening workshop as part of the festival. (Damjan Janevski) 496130_01
Rivers of rubbish By Narelle Coulter Volunteers working to keep the Werribee River clean say they feel “disappointed, frustrated and very sad“ at the amount of rubbish threatening the river’s platypus population. Bacchus Marsh Platypus Alliance held its second Clean-up for Platypus event on Sunday, August 10. Alliance secretary Natasha Evans and 43 other volunteers spent the day plucking rubbish from the river and its banks. Ms Evans estimated that 95 per cent of the rubbish collected was from the
construction industry, including food and beverage packaging used by construction workers. The rubbish also included polystyrene waffle pods, plastic bags and packaging, foam sheeting material, black plastic, corflute construction signs, cement bags, cardboard boxes, tarps, degraded sediment barriers, packing tape, star pickets, timber and Polypipe. She said a small percentage of other rubbish was from households such as boxes from parcel deliveries and plastic tablecloths. “The community really enjoys using and connecting with the Werribee River
corridor and its wildlife and it makes people distressed to see the area so polluted,” Ms Evans said. “Developers use the beauty and utility of the river in advertising to attract first home buyers to their estate, however the very process of building it destroys these values. We are worried about the day that we will encounter a platypus or another animal entangled in this rubbish, worried about the scale of microplastics breaking down and going into the waterways, worried about the long-term health and safety for wildlife and humans. “The overwhelming thing is this issue is
not isolated to us, it is playing out on the urban fringes and along the waterways of all major cities in Australia.” The alliance has called on builders and Moorabool council to do more to stop the rivers of rubbish. The group said builders could have enclosed skip bins on site with lids into which all rubbish is placed at the end of the day. They could construct temporary site fencing to catch rubbish including polystyrene before it blows away and move away from using polystyrene waffle pods in slab construction. Continued: Page 3.
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