Welcome to the Sustainable Foundations Group (SFG) website, a space dedicated to advocating for a healthier and more sustainable future for our built environment.

Working as an environmental consultant undertaking stormwater management plans for developments, my driver to become involved with the SFG stems from the reality that there are practices occurring in our built environment that are currently degrading our waterways and will leave a lasting impact for many years to come if we don’t change our attitude and redefine what Best Practice means.

A key issue is the use of expanded polystyrene (EPS) as a material that, while offering a cheap void forming solution in the construction of a building slab, is non-biodegradable, remaining in the environment for hundreds of years and breaking down into microplastics that infiltrate ecosystems causing pollution. In the Yarra River alone, it is estimated that 380 million pieces of EPS enters the river every year. Survey by the Yarra River Keepers Association shows that 50.3% of the EPS pollution comes from construction sites in Melbourne.

This issue is not confined to Melbourne, it is occurring across Australia and it’s time that we address these issues as a national priority as animals often mistake EPS for food, leading to ingestion of harmful plastics that can cause injury or death. Microplastics entering our ecosystem is now a fact of life, the challenge is to identify the many diffuse sources of this pollution and collectively, work to reduce, replace or even eliminate.