Health Services > Statewide and Community Health Services > Population Health Branch

Waste management community awareness campaigns

Communicate with your community representatives

If EHWs regularly meet with their community representatives and talk with them about local environmental health issues, the representatives can understand the problems in the community and make quicker and better decisions. Communicating with your representatives can also help strengthen support generally for the EHWs’ programs and initiatives.

With each regular meeting, an EHW should provide community representatives with: Posting showing a pictorial representation of recycling at Badu community

a written summary of issues
recommendations for appropriate action (where to from here)
an indication of timeframes (when actions need to be started and finalised).

Involve the community

EHWs can’t solve the problems created by waste without broad community support and involvement. Simply giving people lots of information about waste won’t necessarily change their attitudes or habits. Successful community awareness campaigns change people’s attitudes and behaviours.

When planning a community awareness campaign, consider how you can best achieve the following:

Ensure everyone is aware of a problem and the solution you have in mind.
Encourage community members to suggest ideas for running the project.
Provide opportunities for people to get directly involved in solving the problem:
- choose times and days that will suit most people
- break the project into tasks that can be done by various members of the community, such as school children, people with cars, older people, etc.
- perhaps arrange a child care centre for small children to free up their parents
Provide the means to solve the problem (collection bins and bags, a vehicle to pick up waste, gloves, shovels, etc.).
Acknowledge the efforts and achievements of your community (individuals, groups, or the community generally).
Publicise the results so that people are aware of changes, improvements, and benefits (make announcements at gatherings, on local radio, or in local newspaper stories).

Community awareness campaigns can be targeted to sections of the community, such as school children or businesses, or they can involve the whole community. Awareness of waste problems can be generated by an event, or built up over time through news items and announcements in local and regional media.

Tie your EH promotion into community events

You could, for example, have a working bee to clean up the school grounds, creek banks, or public parks, and put on a barbecue when the job is done. At a school sports carnival, you could allocate different parts of the grounds to grades or teams to keep tidy, and then give out awards at the end of the day.

Below are links to health promotion websites, local media outlets, and to programs that encourage communities to participate in solving waste problems.

Media

Some media will provide free publicity for community issues. However, because there is always strong competition for the limited free radio time or newspaper space, it is important that EHWs establish a relationship with local media outlets and understand each medium’s requirements (deadlines, formats, etc). Make sure you get the necessary approvals from your council before starting a public campaign.

Following are links to media that EHWs might find useful starting points:

Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association (BRACS)
ABC Radio - Tropical North Queensland
ABC Radio - North Queensland
ABC Radio - North-West Queensland
ABC TV (Qld)
Townsville Bulletin
The Cairns Post

Add to media contacts

If you find another newspaper, radio station, television station, or other medium helpful, you can add its details to this page by contacting the Queensland Health Environmental Health Branch.

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State and national programs

Local Programs (examples)

Many shire and city councils participate in the national events mentioned above. Some also run their own waste minimisation campaigns. Talk to EHWs in other local governments, or try a Web search for ‘council clean up’.

Websites of councils and regional organisations with waste management or minimisation information include:

Advertising and Educational examples

Healthy Waterways (Print advertisements)
Healthy Waterways (Fact sheets, posters, CDs)

Case Studies

For links to a range of case studies, click: Landcare - Project Case Studies Archive.

More school health promotion websites

School health promotion activities conducted by various state government agencies in Australia can be found at Health Promoting Schools.

Share your campaign experience

If you have conducted a community awareness campaign, share your experience with your EHW colleagues. Please provide the Queensland Health Environmental Health Unit with written summaries of your campaigns (aims, methods and outcomes) so that they can be added to this website.