Albury takes home top honours at NSW Tidy Towns Awards

The Albury community’s commitment to making an environmental difference has been recognised, with the city winning the top honour at the 2020 Sustainable Communities Tidy Towns Awards last week.

The city was named overall winner of the NSW awards, recognising the community-wide efforts to lead the way in sustainability and environmental initiatives.

AlburyCity also won awards for its organics recovery operations, the Renewable Energy Hub at the Albury Waste Management Centre, its education program Halve Waste and infrastructure improvements at the Albury Waste Management Centre, along with a highly commended for its Repair Café, which helps people repair and recycle goods that would otherwise be thrown out.

“To be named the state’s Tidiest Town is a great honour for us all and is testament to our community’s willingness to embrace sustainability as the way forward for caring for our world,” Mayor Kevin Mack said.

“We’re proud to be at the forefront of innovation in the environmental sector as shown by reducing waste, generating renewable power, and recycling all sorts of products from old furniture through to kitchen waste, polystyrene, glass, paper and cardboard.”

Mack added that the award also recognises Albury’s achievements in the natural environment space, including its heritage and wildlife programs and youth and community programs around environmental sustainability.

“We’re getting closer to achieving our aim of literally halving the amount of waste we bury in landfill – which will be a ground-breaking milestone – and that’s largely due to not only the Albury community, but also the people of our neighbouring council areas who are joining us on this journey,” he said.

The win now puts Albury in the running for the National Award, which will be held in Beechworth this year, while the city has also won the right to host the next NSW Tidy Towns Award in November 2021.

“These awards are a marvellous endorsement of how Albury – with NSW’s fourth largest landfill – is working with our partners and neighbouring communities to make sustainability a central focus of our future,” Mack said.

“Generations to come will enjoy the benefits of this outstanding work, so I’d like to thank our councillors, staff, partners and everyone across the region for helping to bring about this remarkable success.”

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