Environmental initiatives

Coun­cil has active­ly pur­sued expand­ing solar-ener­gy capac­i­ty across all Coun­cil facil­i­ties. Ear­li­er in 2018, Coun­cil installed its first-ever ground-mount­ed, large-scale solar array at the Alice Springs Aquat­ic and Leisure Cen­tre. The 175kW solar PV sys­tem pro­duces up to 285MWh elec­tric­i­ty annu­al­ly, for the facil­i­ty to use. This and oth­er ini­tia­tives bring the total solar capac­i­ty at Coun­cil facil­i­ties to over 575kW, putting Coun­cil well on tar­get to meet its strate­gic objec­tive to become a leader in sustainability.

In Jan­u­ary 2019 Alice Springs Town Coun­cil endorsed a Cli­mate Action Plan for the town. The Cli­mate Action Plan 2018- 2021 pro­vides the Alice Springs Town Coun­cil, and the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty with a guid­ing doc­u­ment and prin­ci­ples for the mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion of Cli­mate Change, sup­port­ing a strate­gic approach for­ward. This plan was devel­oped by indus­try experts in con­sul­ta­tion with the community.

The Cli­mate Action Plan is designed to pro­vide the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty with a guid­ing doc­u­ment and prin­ci­ples for the mit­i­ga­tion and adap­tion of Cli­mate Change. This Plan is about the future of our town – Coun­cil aims to become a leader in adapt­ing, mit­i­gat­ing and plan­ning for cli­mate change, and in doing so aims to pro­vide guid­ance and inspi­ra­tion to the broad­er community. 

The Cli­mate Action Plan 2018 – 2021 includes an emis­sions reduc­tion tar­get of 30% on 2016 lev­els by 2021. To achieve this tar­get, Coun­cil is ded­i­cat­ed to fol­low­ing its actions put for­ward in the Plan.

Sin­gle Use Plastics

Coun­cil sup­ports the elim­i­na­tion of SUPs – such as cups, straws, cut­lery, and take away food con­tain­ers – from its ser­vices, pro­grams, events and facil­i­ties, includ­ing per­mit hold­ers using Coun­cil land or facilities.

Food Organ­ics Gar­den Organics

The pri­ma­ry aim of the Food Organ­ics Gar­den Organ­ics (FOGO) Col­lec­tion Ser­vice is to deliv­er a user-friend­ly ser­vice, which reduces organ­ic waste to land­fill, there­by extend­ing the lifes­pan of the land­fill. The FOGO Col­lec­tion Tri­al will sep­a­rate col­lec­tion of res­i­den­tial food and gar­den organ­ics for repro­cess­ing into a com­postable product.

The tri­al will test all aspects of a FOGO col­lec­tion ser­vice nec­es­sary to pro­vide such a ser­vice to all house­holds with­in Alice Springs.