Originally coined as “The Big Flick”, Earth Hour was developed between the WWF (World Wide Fund for nature) and a Sydney advertising agency in 2007 as a means of engaging Australians “on the issue of climate change” with the inaugural Earth Hour running in Sydney on March 31 of that year. A roaring success with an excess of two million Sydneysiders, and 2,200 Sydney businesses getting involved, this revolutionary event inspired the same movement some 11,940km away in the city of San Francisco California when San Franciscans too switched off for their “Lights Out” program in the October. With the influence of Sydney and San Francisco’s events spreading across the globe, the undeniable appeal

Review and audit – is there a difference? Well, the review and audit of a risk management plan (e.g. DWQMP or DWMS) are two separate activities to be undertaken, each for its own purpose. But although distinct activities, reviews and audits both contribute to the continuous improvement of the plan. First things first, risk plans should not be regarded as static documents. They need to be used, regularly revised and kept up to date. There is no use developing a plan if you are not going to implement it. Reviews and audits form part of the implementation process! Brief summary of key differences: The ADWG has further details on reviews and audits. Feel free to have a chat with us on plan revie

Recognised the world over, the Quality Management System ISO:9001 is one of the most applied management tools across the globe. The purpose of this international standard is to demonstrate universally, the level of corporate governance held by an organisation, in turn displaying the organisations level of competence, professionalism and the quality of which one can come to expect from the organisations products and services. Earlier this month, the tables were turned for Viridis as the auditors became the auditees when we undertook our ISO:9001-2015 audit with SciQual International. In preparation, a selection of our staff performed a number of internal audits on both our systems and process

On Tuesday 13 March at 9am a team of 5 environmental crusaders known as team Viridis descended on the Murarrie Recreational Reserve to take part in Clean Up Australia Day. With Captain James at the helm, we used our elbow grease, imagination and team work to reclaim trolleys from the bog, bottles and chairs from the creek and all other manner of recklessly discarded refuse from the parkscape. Despite the rain, we all thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to share in such a worthy experience together and ultimately give back to the precious environment that sustains our life so valuably. Now a well known annual event, Clean Up Australia day has been running since 1989 when one man, Ian Kiernan,

Australia is currently in the midst of a listeriosis outbreak, linked to rockmelons. Four people have tragically lost their life (as of March 2018) with a total of 17 cases identified so far. This is a terrible situation for all involved, including those directly affected, as well as food producers and the community in general. What is listeriosis? Listeria monocytogenes is the causative agent of the food-borne life-threatening disease listeriosis (Vivant et al 2013). Health effects range from flu-like symptoms with vomiting and diarrhoea in healthy adults to life-threatening diseases such as meningitis and septicaemia in vulnerable people and spontaneous abortion in pregnant women (Vivant e

Viridis is a new member of WaterRA and were pleased to attend our first members' meeting in February. This was a fantastic experience, to be in a room with so many people passionate about water quality and the research that they were doing. Students from the WaterRA Education Program presented the findings from their research in one of the first sessions. Every presentation was engaging and there was some really interesting work being done. I now have a new appreciation for algal floc! The last session of the day was on some of the challenges and opportunities facing rural and remote Australia. We started with an interesting comparison between electricity and water supply and if the innovati

All recycled water schemes in Queensland are required to ensure that the recycled water is ‘fit for the use’ under the Public Health Act 2005 (PH Act) Section 57F. What does ‘fit for use’ mean? In Qld, the following types of schemes require an approved RWMP and validation program: a critical recycled water scheme to augment a supply of drinking water via a source supply (e.g. a dam) to premises by way of a dual reticulation system irrigate minimally processed food crops a use prescribed under a regulation made under the Water Supply (Safety and Reliability) Act 2008. For these schemes, the regulatory requirements are straight forward, and there are guidelines that detail how to meet the regu

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Australian Water Associations 5th Young Professionals Conference, hosted at the MCG in Melbourne. Sessions were conducted in a large conference room with tables of 10, allowing me to get to know my table mates, and to work on activities together during workshop sessions. Highlights for me included a panel discussion on Australia and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a workshop on Integrated Water Management in outer Melbourne and a discussion on the importance of ikigai and networking by Kathryn Silvester, in her keynote speech on the second day. It was a whirl wind trip jam packed with networking, presentations and workshops, all set agai

Setting the right critical limit is possibly the most important factor in managing water quality risk and ensuring the safe supply of water, whether it's drinking water or recycled water. When the critical limits are right, there is confidence that action will be taken to prevent the supply of potentially unsafe water. Monitoring critical control points is the monitoring of operational performance of the critical treatment components in a water supply scheme and forms the basis of the operational monitoring program. It is continuous (or highly frequent, such as daily) and gives a real time indication of how well a treatment process is working. It will confirm that the system is working effec