You all know we love our family holidays, and we’re really passionate about the environment. We really feel it’s important that both tourists, and tourism industry operators understand the immense value that comes with the process of being eco friendly.

While we haven’t been to this destination, we love Queensland holidays and, the Great Barrier Reef is at the top of our dream destinations to visit and write about one day, so we were really pleased to read this news, and wanted to share it with you all:

Today, it was revealed that  Lady Elliot Island has stopped selling plastic water bottles to help reduce it’s carbon footprint even further.

We think it’s a great initiative, especially as the island is equipped with a water desalination plant that produces perfect, untainted, pure water available for guests from drinking fountains or taps.

lady elliot island holidaysHere’s some interesting information:

“In 2009-10, approximately 373 million water bottles ended up as waste in Australia alone. If we can encourage our guests to live by the mantra of refill not landfill and engage with them to go water bottle free, hopefully this will spread to other communities around Australia and the World.”

“The extracting, packaging and transporting of a litre of bottled water can emit hundreds of times more greenhouse gases than a litre of tap water, so not only are we reducing the amount of bottles but also helping to save the environment. We all need to take a bold stand” said Sonya Mroz, Sales and Marketing Executive of Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort.

The resort has many other initiatives in place including the implementation of a solar power station that has reduced fuel burn by over 70%, which makes you really wonder why every resort can’t do the same!

It’s important to think about the big picture:

It’s not only tourist destinations that should be implementing changes such as this, but within our personal lives, or during any holiday journey, it’s really important to be aware of how we may be affecting the environment.

Being environmentally conscious goes much further than putting your rubbish in the bin, it takes real consideration as to how our entire lifestyle choices from production to consumption may affect the environment around us.

About Lady Elliot Island

Lady Elliot Island is the only resort island on the Great Barrier Reef with a direct flight access to the island airstrip. It’s one of three island resorts located within the Great Barrier Reef, and is situated within the Marine National Park zone. This zoning means that visitors on Lady Elliot are treated to a wonderful year round display of live coral and the iconic Manta Rays along with other amazing wildlife.

There’s lots to do on the island including guided tours in glass bottomed boats, snorkelling, scuba diving, reef walks, beach strolls and even kids activities such as the Reef Rangers Club that runs in NSW/QLD school holiday periods. Seasonal opportunities exist to see dolphins, turtles, whales and a range of bird life.

Lady Elliot Island is on our MUST VISIT destination list (very high up!) we especially can’t wait to see turtle nesting and hatching.

Have you visited the Great Barrier Reef before? We’d love to hear about your experience.