The members of the Gladstone Industry Leadership Group (GILG) accept that our community’s environmental performance expectations continually evolve. GILG members acknowledge that industry needs to constantly work together in order to meet these expectations and thus play a positive role in the liveability of our community.

To do this for air quality, GILG’s members have carefully examined available air monitoring data but have not identified any emissions that are above generally accepted air quality guidelines.

However rather than wait for the final recommendations of Clean and Healthy Air for Gladstone report, GILG has begun to implement a large number of Clean and Healthy Air Management Program (CHAMP) environmental improvements.

So far GILG member employees have identified more than one hundred CHAMP improvement ideas, of which more than one third have been shared with other GILG members.

The majority of CHAMP ideas relate to the reduction of particulate pollution or dust. The reduction of dust not only makes a site more visually and physically pleasant, it also reduces the impact of industry generated dust on the Gladstone community.

A wide range of dust reduction ideas have been collected. They include the coverage or removal of stockpiles or use of dust suppression systems; changes to conveyors, transfer points, chutes and loading points; sealing and regular sweeping of roads and paths; improved filter bags, seals, hoods, vents and dust collection systems; better waste reuse processes and a variety of site housekeeping improvements.

A number of ideas to improve site amenity were also suggested such as planting and better maintenance of gardens and trees. This vegetation not only acts as a visual buffer but it helps minimize the impacts of dust and noise pollution.

Other ideas gathered included energy efficiency suggestions such as shut down of unnecessary lighting and equipment and use of alternative fuels, better material handling processes, green tours of environmental improvements and changes to equipment maintenance procedures.

These ideas are being assessed and are being progressively put into place. In future columns I will detail some of the environmental improvements that these CHAMP ideas have achieved.

If you have any questions on CHAMP or air quality concerns that you would like me to answer, please go to our forum topic at www.gilg.com.au.

If you would like to have your say and don't know how, please click on this link which shows you how to register and make a comment, anonymously if you wish.

I look forward to hearing from you soon, cheers, Kurt.

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