The Garbage Medical Insurance program is a micro health insurance program that uses garbage as a financial resource. With this program, the community and unensured poor slum dwellers are able to pay for health cover, drugs, and other clinical services by using garbage as payment to an insurance scheme. This, in turn, improves their access to medical treatment and the quality of public health programs with respect to promotive, preventive, curative, and rehabilitative well-being mainly targeting slum children below 5 years and expectant women. It further offers the community an incentive to start organized waste management and waste entrepreneurship system from the household level so as to benefit from continual health insurance.

In order to clean up the city of its plastic waste, we have established a stable and profitable company and tackle the problem of waste pollution at the point of generation by attaching social, environmental, and economic value to plastic waste. We collect waste plastics from the streets and landfills, we also allow the community to exchange their waste plastics with medical insurance coverage, this helps us to collect enough waste plastics to manufacture plastic lumbers, this has helped us a lot to change the community’s attitude towards waste management.

An innovative, chemical-free, and less energy consumption technology to recycle and transform post-consumer plastic waste into affordable and durable plastic lumbers which are an alternative to expensive timber to ensure a cleaner and healthier environment while reducing effects of climate change, deforestation rates, and giving better margin to our customers.

Governance assessment processes led by the site engaged local stakeholders and developed action plans on key governance principles on participation, accountability and benefit-sharing. 

The Van Long Management Board, has the mandate to make decisions in VLNR. It is a multi-stakeholder Management Board and was established in 2001.

The Arakwal people and NPWS staff committed to work together to implement the agreed actions. NPWS included actions in the annual operations plan and worked with Arakwal people to create opportunities for them to connect with the orchid and its heath habitat. They recognised this as an important part of maintaining and strengthening the cultural values. Before this project, the heath had not been burned for 30 years due to the difficulty of getting approval for a cultural burn of bushland next to a suburban area. Even though the cultural burn required a lot of resources, NPWS prepared and approved a burn plan and Arakwal people undertook cultural activities such as seed collection ahead of the fire. Fortunately, in 2018 all the conditions were suitable for a small cultural burn. The health of the heath has been surveyed by Arakwal NPWS staff post fire with additional sightings of Byron Bay orchid have been reported.

As a result of this project a seasonal planning calendar which highlights how management actions are scheduled through year, factoring in seasons, opportunities, weather and traditional practices was co-created. The calendar brings together culture, ecology and management actions in an easy to understand form that is both a communication and a scheduling tool. 

Through the three workshops, Arakwal knowledge holders had time to identify, discuss and build consent on the priority values, most important actions and how to evaluate success.

Through this process, protecting and caring for the Byron Bay orchid and its habitat, the graminoid clay heath were identified as the highest priority for management. Both have cross-cultural significance as they have cultural significance for Arakwal people and are listed as endangered under Australian Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. NPWS and Arakwal people are working to protect these values but are faced with challenges of limited resources and information.

Ten key actions were identified to help manage the cultural and ecological values of the orchid and its habitat including: activities to bring people on country, management of weeds and encroaching trees in the clay heath habitat, harvesting of seeds and fruits, communication to reduce impacts of neighbours and visitors. One of the most important actions identified was to undertake a cultural burn in the heath which requires burning to regenerate and control weeds and invasive plants. Cultural burning is defined as “burning practices developed by Aboriginal people to enhance the health of the land and its people” (Firesticks Alliance Indigenous Corporation).

The principles and ethics of applying a cross-cultural approach were established at the outset. It was important that this was an Arakwal led process and they had a strong voice in setting up the collaboration framework. This included who the knowledge holders were, how information could be shared within the Arakwal community, within the joint management team and with the wider non-Aboriginal community, who had a say in prioritising values, how to engage the Arakwal and broader Byron Bay communities and the time frame that suited all participants. Arakwal rangers, Arakwal community, researchers and NPWS managers collaborated to identify a vision and shared purpose through a series of workshops. Together they developed the vision for the orchid and surrounding habitat, "this species and place is in healthy condition into the future, and that the areas and its values are cared for, learned about and used by the Arakwal people”.

Public awareness and trained community groups in old town on plastic waste substitution, recycling, reduction, recovery, and safe disposal practices. 

Equipping the women artisans with machinery, tools, and equipment for making sculptures and items out of plastic waste as well as training women artisans on product development and packaging was very well informed.

Empowerment is just a means to an end in ensuring that plastic waste management is mainstreamed.

CEJAD realized the value of engagement is very critical in getting various stakeholders with different needs to realign consequently unlocking resources as well as forge alliances for meaningful participatory development.

Forums were held in the community to ensure that public participation is at the heart of the marine plastic waste as well as getting community groups to own the problem and take charge.