sustainability

Our Survival Day 2025 took place on January 26th, from 11am to 5pm, on Bunurong Country. With the theme "Protect your mother," the event focused on nurturing our relationship to mother earth while celebrating Indigenous Strength. B-Alternative returned for the 3rd consecutive year providing our reusable crockery and bin stations services in kind. This year we were grateful to work with Mornington Peninsula Shire Wash Trailer.

Prevention of Crockery Loss

Following advice from last year we removed the wristband system whereby all patrons required a wristband in exchange for a crockery item. This made the process of reusable crockery more streamlined and accessible and freed up volunteers for greater site presence/ bin fairy roles. We saw a very minimal crockery loss of just 23 lost items total. The success of this system can also be attributed to the enclosed space of OSD (1-2 entry/exit points), strong pre-event communication from BA to OSD volunteers and security as well as increased signage. Food Vendors Vendors were serviced with crockery from the Mornington Peninsula Shire’s ‘Wash Against Waste’ trailer. B-Alternative distributed 2,201 rockery items to vendors during the event, and received back 860 unused, clean items. Vendors on the day were pleased with the reusables service.

As usual we had overwhelmingly positive outcomes within our Bin Fairy-ing/ Resource Recovery stations at Our Survival Day 2025 Reduced Number of Resource Recovery Stations This year we decreased our initial planned number of Resource Recovery Stations to just 2 areas, each with 4 waste streams: General Waste, Recycling, Dirty Dishes and Compost. We positioned these in the heart of the food court and close the stage/ entrance. While this reduction was unplanned for, it was really successful as each station consistently had multiple Bin Fairies, allowing for increased resource recovery. We believe it will be valuable to continue with a small number of bin stations going forward. Waste from Food Vendors/ Store Holders Once the event had finished, we noticed many food vendors and store holders incorrectly using the bins. For following years we would recommend stronger pre-event communication to take in what you take out, as well as extending our bin-fairy roles to another hour post event to ensure any dumped waste is correctly sorted ie. Tape pulled off cardboard.