MORNINGTON Peninsula organisation Hand in Hand for the Coast has won the 2026 EPA Waste Prevention and Reduction Award at the Keep Australia Beautiful Tidy Towns & Cities sustainability awards.
The award recognises more than a decade of community-led work investigating how to clean and care for the beaches on the Mornington Peninsula.
Led by local coastal advocates Josie Jones, Melanie Bird and Cara Hull, the initiative has grown from grassroots litter prevention into years of citizen science, monitoring, evidence gathering and advocacy for lower-impact beach cleaning.
At the awards night held on Wednesday 30 September the Mornington Peninsula also went on to receive the Tidy Town of the Year award, making it a successful evening for the local community.
Leader of the Hand in Hand organisation Josie Jones says this is an achievement everyone in the community should be proud of.
“This is great,” said Jones,
“We should all be celebrating the unique ecosystems that our peninsula has to offer, whether that’s our beaches, our bushlands, and it’s very diverse.”
“I’m so proud of our team. We’re all volunteers and we’re all committed to keeping our coastline clean.”
In the past, Jones has campaigned on the importance of beaches being hand-cleaned rather than being cleaned by mechanical raking.
Jones has stated that mechanical raking, which has been a common way to clean Mornington Peninsula beaches in the past, is ineffective and causes litter to remain embedded in the sand.
“Hand-cleaning our beaches has been found to be so much more effective,” said Jones.
“From the testing that was conducted back in 2023, it was shown mechanical raking was only 22 per cent effective.”
“When we hand-clean we saw our coastlines restored, we saw erosion disappear and we just see our amazing beaches in their best condition.”
Jones now continues to campaign for mechanical raking to be banned across beaches in Victoria.
During the evening, Benbenjie Ward councillor Max Patton acknowledged the contribution of local people including Josie Jones and Hand in Hand’s work in coastal management.
Patton also acknowledged Ben Smith from the Mornington Community Support Centre for creating opportunities for people experiencing homelessness and Malcolm Legg, who received the Dame Phyllis Frost award.
It was a successful night overall the region, with the Frankston City Council taking out the award for Australia’s most successful beaches.
In 2019 Jones won the Mornington Peninsula Citizen of the Year for her anti-litter campaigns, and was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2022.
She has worked tirelessly for years to prevent waste along the peninsula’s shoreline and maintain a healthy ecosystem.
First published in the Mornington News – 6 October 2026
