Festival of No Waste and Charlie Mgee Sundowner 2017

The sixth annual Fair Harvest festival, the “Festival of No Waste” was an amazing event that beat all previous records for both the number of things to see and do and the number of people that attended the day.

With 40 different exhibits, talks and  activities there was certainly something for everyone. It was fabulous to see families arriving in the morning and stay right through till the end on the music in the late afternoon.

The most common response  was that “there wasn’t enough time to do everything on offer”.

Around 400 people (including kids) enjoyed the day! Thanks everyone for making it great and for doing so many positive things for a waste free future. Here’s a few pics……

(apologies to those I don’t have photos of, please feel free to forward me any you have and I will add them)

Opening the festival……

Thank you to these strong leaders in our community, inspiring environmental and cultural awareness. Pete Lane from the Shire of Augusta Margaret River opened the day with a talk on the stand our local council is taking on waste and landfill. This was followed by Zac and  Wayne Webb who had everyone enthralled with stories of Indigenous relationship to land and cultural sustainability.

 

 In the Kids department

It was all go in the kids area with a fabulous range of ideas to make with kids. The recycled instruments were a hit and the jellyfish makers were kept busy all day. There was also recycled paper making, play dough and glue making, bunting making, chocolate making and wood work with pallets.

 

Creative recycled fabrics and fibre

Ethics around fibre have become an increasingly important part of our lives. There has been a fantastic push for more local, organic and ethical food, the time has now come to look at how these same principles can be adopted in clothing.

I can’t thank Jane Milburn from Textile Beat enough for her talk on “Rethinking Clothing Culture” , Jane spoke to a full room at the festival and inspired people with not only her words and ideas but her very personal action of making, mending and up -cycling her own clothing. Jane was travelling from Queensland and made the special trip to join us at the festival.

We also have a very active group in Margaret River who have started teaching and inspiring people to mend their own clothes.

“Stitched Up” meet weekly to mend and up-cycle and they joined us at the festival to share their skills.

 

The Augusta “Creative Recycling” group was well represented, making a great range of useful products from recycled materials ..

as well as our very own Sari Ellen Bennet and her beautiful stall of up-cycled clothing

and Marnie Fulton’s beautiful Up-cycled babies and children’s clothes

Some ideas of how to avoid throw away christmas wrapping using recycled fabrics instead.

Cynamon Aeria has been a part of nearly every festival we have had. Setting up under the trees and welcoming people to join her in her latest weaving activities. This year Cynamon was weaving out of recycled paper.

 

 

In the Kitchen

The Kitchen is such a big area to combat waste, whether it is how we use our food resources or how we wrap, store and cary them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you also to our wonderful team in the Fair Harvest Kitchen, James and Katie from Jindong Free Range Pork and Charley the chocolate maker for keeping people fed all day.

 

 

Household Waste

 

 

 

 

 

 Transport and Tiny Homes

Transport is such an important area to tackle waste. There would be no better fuel saving activity than jumping on your bike, but the next step is learning how to fix it! Thanks Brian and Lindsay for your hard work and sharing your skills in bike repair and recycling.

The veggie oil truck was possibly one of the most attended talk of the day with Dave having to do an extra session in the afternoon for another keen group.

 

 

 

Timber and forests

Thanks to the tireless work from the Western Australian Forest Alliance for keeping us informed of the fate of our precious native forests and for advocating new approaches to forest harvesting and products and encouraging the use of plantation timbers.

 

…and we were extremely fortunate to have this amazing example of plantation timber use by “Woodsmiths Margaret River”, follow these guys as they are going to do some great stuff and are using the plantation here at Fair Harvest to base their business.

 

In the Garden

The compost shower building was going on all weekend with people dropping in and compacting the heap, creating heat that heats the water …..find out more about our  super hot water system here

 

 

 

and Kathy Dawson from  had a very informative stall representing the Biochar Network of Western Australia Inc

 

Energy

Thanks to the huge commitment of local people the Augusta Margaret River Clean Community Energy Group is seriously up and running ….

“AMR Clean Community Energy is a group working to produce a bankable and achievable renewable energy facility that will reduce carbon emissions by >11,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent each year.

We will then use the share of profits earned by AMR Clean Community Energy  to support ongoing community-owned renewable projects designed to collectively achieve a minimum reduction of 20% of carbon emissions in the region.”

and Rod Dilkes welded an impressing dome to protect fruit trees using solar power

…….and to finish the day with a great dance with Charlie Mgee and the Formidable Vegetable Sound System