Lismore council awarded for innovation

LISMORE City Council has won a Local Government Excellence Award for Environmental Leadership and Sustainability.

Lismore City Council has won a Local Government Excellence Award for Environmental Leadership and Sustainability. Photo: contributed. Picture: contributed

LISMORE City Council has won a Local Government Excellence Award for Environmental Leadership and Sustainability as well as a highly commended award for its Frontline Leaders Program.

Hosted by Local Government Professionals Australia in Sydney last Thursday night, the NSW Local Government Excellence Awards recognise councils that are achieving important milestones in their community and within their organisation.

Council won the Environmental Leadership and Sustainability award for its organic certification of kerbside food and garden waste.

Lismore was the first council in Australian to achieve this certification.

"We're just so thrilled - organic certification was a long-held dream of ours and we can now proudly say that all our composting products are 100% organic certified," Waste Operations Coordinator Kevin Trustum said.

"We achieved organic certification for our green waste in 2012 but the kerbside certification was much more challenging and it took us another two years of development and testing."

Mr Trustum said during the Imagine Lismore community consultation in 2012, residents said they wanted Lismore to become a model of sustainability.

He said Lismore City Council was working working hard to fulfil that vision.

"This award shows that we are getting there, step by step, project by project. We're always looking to innovate, to try new things, to be progressive and employ new technologies to help us become more sustainable," Mr Trustum said.

"We have now totally closed the loop on our green waste services - all our green waste is made into new products and sold to farmers and gardeners to go back into the ground.

"It means local organic producers can buy local, and the money we generate goes into investigating and implementing further sustainability and recycling initiatives."

Lismore also received a highly commended award in the Operational and Management Effectiveness category for its Frontline Leaders Program.

All supervisors at Lismore City Council were required to undertake the training program, which empowers workers to be good leaders in order to improve internal culture and enhance productivity.

A modified version of the training will be rolled out for all Council staff in 2016