Award in the bag

By Kath Gannaway
ERIN Murphy of Healesville is proud to be flying the flag for young people who are prepared to take a stand for the environment.
Ms Murphy was presented with the Ken McIntosh Memorial Award for Young Environmental Achiever of the Year at the Shire of Yarra Ranges Australia Day Awards on Friday.
Last year was pivotal for the dynamic 22-year-old who saw a way to make a difference in her own town and acted on it.
Ms Murphy developed the Healthier Healesville Project aimed at reducing Healesville’s dependency on plastic bags.
Being brought up in a family where recycling and composting are part of everyday life she has always been environmentally aware.
“When I read that the number of plastic bags Australians use each year would stretch some horrendous amount of times around the equator, I wanted to do something practical to change that,” she said.
As part of the shire’s Young Leaders’ Project she researched plastic bag use in Healesville, designed an alternative compact bag and worked with the local Chamber of Commerce on an incentive scheme to encourage people to use the bags.
The next step is to get them made and out into the community.
Balancing a full-time job in the tourism industry and volunteering at the tourist information centre with her passion for the environment, Ms Murphy also conducted environment workshops for primary school students and was a mentor and leader at the shire’s youth leadership camp.
She says young people have an important role to play in saving the planet.
“We see ourselves as the people who are going to have to live in this screwed-up environment and we know we have to do something.
“You see it in schools like St Brigids where they are doing a lot of environment projects,” she said.
“The kids there were so keen to hear what I had to say and that is very encouraging.”
She is encouraged also by increased media focus on the environment but is disappointed it has come only after so much damage has already been caused.
“People are starting to make changes to stop it but you don’t just have to stop it, you have to reverse it.
“That means stopping things like over-logging, over-fishing and generally using more resources than we need to.”
Ms Murphy said she was ‘stoked’ when she learned of the award.
“It’s certainly nice to think the work I have done matters but I’m not the only one,” she said.
“There are a lot of other people doing their part for the environment.
“Trees can’t speak, so we have to do it for them.”