Consulting and Program Delivery

Denmark’s own Community Compost Hub Launched

On Sat 30 November 2024, Green Skills Inc and the Denmark Kwoorabup Community Garden group ran an open afternoon, volunteer appreciation event and launch of a pilot community compost hub. Around twenty-five people attended this educational event that celebrated volunteers and the exciting new initiative for the Denmark Community.

Don Hunt, community garden coordinator showed people around the garden, Shire of Denmark President, Cr Kingsley Gibson, Green Skills Inc chairperson, Ashleigh Murch, Basil Schur of Green Skills Inc, and Great Southern Living Soils’ Kim Frankowiak spoke at the Compost Hub launch. Music was provided by local band, Trip Hazzard, and a BBQ was enjoyed by many of the regular volunteers in the Denmark Kwoorabup Community Garden.

The event was supported by Green Skills, Denmark CRC and WA Department of Communities Thank a Volunteer Day Grant Program 2024. The WA Government’s Waste Authority has committed support for the compost hub through a Waste Sorted educational grant in 2025.

Eco Art Outings Great Southern

Eco- Art Outings in the Great Southern with Caroline Narkle – In the Footsteps of Bella Kelly: celebrated Noongar Artist.

Green Skills in collaboration with Oyster Harbour Catchment Group and Gondwana Link are working with Mt Barker Noongar Elders, Caroline Narkle, Frank Krakouer and their family and local artists. Supported by local farmers, three Eco-Art Day outings are scheduled between October 2023 and January 2024. Public exhibitions of art will be showcased afterwards.

The outings will provide an opportunity for the broader community to join visits to locations around Mt Barker to and participate in outdoor landscape painting with Caroline and members of her family.

Caroline Narkle is a daughter of celebrated Noongar artist, Bella Kelly (1915 – 1994). Bella Kelly was closely associated with the famous Carrolup movement of Noongar Landscape art.

Caroline is an accomplished artist in her own right and paints in the Carrolup style of landscape art.

It is a privilege to have Caroline agree to come out on Boodja and paint. The outings will also benefit from the participation of printmaker and art educator, Nikki Green (Great Southern TAFE Art lecturer and member of the Denmark Butterfactory Art Gallery as well as south coast eco-fabric artist, Jenny Wilson.

Locations for the art outings include the family farm of Heather and Mark Adams, on Woogenellup North Road, the Goodies Family farm near Kendenup, and the Tootanellup rural property near Frankland.

The outings provide an opportunity for a relaxed, educational setting for yarning, sharing and creativity.

The Mt Barker Visitor Centre will host a two-month exhibition of works from these outings from February through to April 2024 and include a prominent opening event.

It is planned to take this exhibit to other towns in the Great Southern in late 2024.

COST per participant: $35 per session

BRING along own art materials and packed lunch

Please note that transport is not provided. Carpooling is encouraged. To register, please click here.

Denmark Community Garden Permaculture Outing

Denmark Community Garden Group Permaculture Outing

On Saturday 7th October, over 20 garden enthusiasts attended Green Skills’ permaculture outing with Lindsey Sesin (Denmark Soup Kitchen) and Megan Hall (permaculture lecturer).

The event was held at Denmark Kwoorabup Community garden gazebo, to the rear of Denmark CRC.

The event included an intro to permaculture and what it can offer gardens. The group then carpooled to Lindsey Sesin’s home garden in Denmark. Lindsey introduced attendees to her garden and her organics business through a permaculture perspective. The next stop was Basil and Ananda’s garden, which included a bush fire protection garden sprinkler system demo.

Thanks to Green Skills, Denmark CRC, Denmark Shire Council, Denmark Community Foundation, the McHenry Family of Mt Lindesay farm and Andrew Jenkins and the Jenkins Dairy farm for their support for the Community Garden and its workshops.

Denmark Community Garden Visits a Special Farm near Denmark

Denmark Community Garden News

On Saturday 30 October 2021 a group of 28 people with the Denmark Community Garden group visited Rod and Marion MacDougall’s farm situated out of Denmark. The focus was on the farm orchard which has an wonderful variety of fruit trees including 120 varieties of apples (both heritage and commercial), 14 citrus varieties, 20+ stone fruit, 8 Cassy fruit, 10 Feijoa, Persimmons, Mulberries, Jujubes, Walnut, Pecan, Macadamia, edible Pine, and more ! Rod, Marion and their children have an amazing font of knowledge about horticulture. Appreciations to the whole family for the opportunity to experience such a diverse and bountiful farm, a show case for regenerative and biodiverse agriculture.

Back in the Denmark Community Garden behind the Denmark CRC, Don Hunt and other keen community garden volunteers have been busy in the Garden’s propagating facilities

The Denmark Kwoorabup Community Garden workshop program is supported by Green Skills, Denmark Community Resource Centre and the Shire of Denmark.

Free Zero Waste Resources for Educators & Families

Are you a teacher, student or parent and looking for free zero waste education resources, or ideas to keep your kids happy? Here are a range of lesson plans, printable worksheets, patterns, recipes, games and fun ideas that can be used for learning at home, online learning, small children and general household use.

The first free zero waste resources are two lesson packs are based around Home Bin Audits and Fabric Reusables. These lesson plans are mapped to the Australian curriculum and can be used for most ages from kindy to early high school, so they’re also great for homeschooling a group of siblings. The printable worksheets are designed to be low-ink and can be printed in black and white, and can be used for reluctant writers. Activities include a movie review with suggestions, rubbish walk, bin audit (with different methods depending on age and ability), designing and sewing six fabric items, brainstorming solutions and a fibre bingo game. Students are prompted to think about ethics of single use plastic and use systems thinking, as well as math, English, design & technology, HASS, arts and science skills.

Home Bin Audit Lesson Plan

Home Bin Audit Worksheets

Fabric Reusable Lesson Plan

Fabric Reusables Patterns

Fabric Reusables Worksheets

Fabric Reusables Fibre Bingo

If you have small children at home, you are probably struggling to avoid plastic toys and sensory play! Some children love to play with oozy slime and goo, but all the commercial versions are packed in plastic and even the homemade recipes use PVA glue and other ingredients you probably don’t want on your child’s skin. Here is a recipe sheet with four fun sensory things to make, a list of ideas to make a sensory tub and a simple sheet of seasonal play activities.

Four Plastic-Free Play Recipes

Plastic-Free Sensory Tub Ideas

Seasonal Play Activities

And here’s one for the adults – did you do more cooking in 2020 but find that you were missing just one ingredient for the recipe? Print this out for your pantry door. It’s a list of food substitutes so you can make that recipe with whatever you have in the cupboard.

Food Substitution Chart

Did you use these for your class? Let us know at Green Skills Albany.

These resources were created with support from the Waste Authority of WA.

Jade Joins the Green Skills Denmark Office for her Internship Work Experience

Jade joins Green Skills Denmark office for her internship work experience

In April 2021, the Green Skills Denmark Office hosted a Sustainable Development and International Aid and Development student from Murdoch University, Jade Roycroft, for her Sustainable Development Internship Project. The unit requires 100 – 120 hours of volunteer internship work experience and creates an opportunity for eager students, such as Jade, to integrate theory with practical work experience. Jade chose to approach Green Skills to host her following a short fieldtrip experience that she had on a Murdoch University field course based in Denmark last December, under the supervision of Nicole Hodgson and the Green Skills senior project manager, Dr Louise Duxbury.
Jade was keen to do her internship work experience opportunity with Green Skills, to deepen her understanding and experience the transformative power of grass-roots community driven approaches. Jade’s hope is to bring the knowledge that she gained whilst working with Green Skills back to Perth, to empower her work there with urban communities and encourage creative responses to sustainability issues.

Jade shared her internship time between research and practical hands on work – and helped out volunteering at the Denmark Tip Shop, the Albany Container Deposit Scheme depot, at the Denmark Visitor Centre and minor maintenance works at the Denmark Sanctuary. Jade provided positive feedback after her work experience, commenting that:

“Green Skills is an inspiring organisation which is creating a more sustainable future by facilitating an extraordinary range of projects. The diversity of these projects reflects the organisation’s capacity to incorporate different methods and perspectives to achieve a holistic approach toward sustainability.
It is a nurturing organisation that considers the individual and unique needs of its volunteers. Green Skills sees the potential in people with all kinds of backgrounds, disadvantages and disabilities, and enables them to volunteer in their strengths. It also offers a diversity of areas for people to volunteer in to cater for their preferences and passions.”

Green Skills launches Containers for Change in Albany

On October 1st, the Containers for Change launched over 200 depots across Western Australia.
One of these depots is run by Green Skills at 93 Stead Road, Centennial Park.

We hit the ground running, and honestly have not stopped.
It has been fantastic to see so many people sorting, collecting and bringing in their containers for recycling.

So how does it all work?

The consumer gets 10c per eligible container.
Green Skills (or the Operator Refund Point) gets 6c per container for processing.
Essentially, the more containers delivered to a particular Authorised Refund Point on a regular basis, the more people that can be employed.

When is the Green Skills Container Deposit depot at 93 Stead Road, Albany WA open?

9am – 4pm Monday and Friday
10am – 4pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
Closed on Saturday and Public Holidays

Please Note: If you need to drop off outside our regular hours or arrange a pickup please contact Rebecca on 9840 5670 or [email protected]. Please allow a few days for this to be organised as this is based on availability of staff & volunteers

How do I get my money?

There are two ways:

Cash: For a cash refund, you need to wait whilst we sort and count your containers.This can only be done during our set operating hours, and please note: sometimes we only have smaller change if we have been really, really busy!

Scheme ID: To set up a scheme ID, you go to the Containers for Change website. www.containersforchange.com.au. When you come into the depot, you can leave a bag with your Scheme ID inside and then we have 3 days to count this. When they have been counted you get an email with a breakdown of the types and numbers of different containers you have had counted. In future we will have 24 hr Bag Drop facility where you can drop off these bags outside of our regular opening hours.

What if I want to donate my containers to Green Skills or another charity / community group but I live in another area?

You can donate using the Scheme ID of the organisation or group you wish to donate to.

In the same way that individuals set up a Scheme ID, community groups and fundraising bodies can also set up a Scheme ID.

If you are needing a hand or not sure how to do this, please reach out to Rebecca at the Green Skills depot via email: [email protected]

At the Container Recycling Depot in Albany we also have a list on the board of the Scheme IDs of many local groups and charities. You could add your group to this list and make it easier for people to know how they can donate to your group.

Have you considered how much you could fundraise?
If 50 people donated 20 containers every single week for a year that would be another $5200 of donations received for your cause in 12 months. (Most people tend to donate more than that or are able to pick up 100+ containers at a time simply collecting litter from road sides or the beach! A litter collection spree could fast become a major fundraising event, benefiting you and the environment at the same time)

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On October 1st, the Containers for Change launched over 200 depots across Western Australia.
One of these depots is run by Green Skills at 93 Stead Road, Centennial Park.

We hit the ground running, and honestly have not stopped.
It has been fantastic to see so many people sorting, collecting and bringing in their containers for recycling.

So how does it all work?

The consumer gets 10c per eligible container.
Green Skills (or the Operator Refund Point) gets 6c per container for processing.
Essentially, the more containers delivered to a particular Authorised Refund Point on a regular basis, the more people that can be employed.

When is the Green Skills Container Deposit depot at 93 Stead Road, Albany WA open?

9am – 4pm Monday and Friday
10am – 4pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
Closed on Saturday and Public Holidays