The 19th annual calendar was launched on Monday and features 15 student artworks under the theme ‘Save your garden scraps – make them work for you’.

The artworks include colourful drawings and clever messages such as ‘Keep calm and compost’, ‘Compost today, don’t let scraps stay’, ‘The environment is not lost if you compost’ and ‘I dig compost’.

All Eurobodalla primary schools participate in creating artwork for the calendar under a different theme each year, with the winners’ artwork from each school featured on the following year’s calendar.

Past themes have included invasive species, recycling, water conservation, clean oceans and estuary health.

The free calendars are available this week at all shires libraries, in the foyer of the Council administration building in Moruya, the Batemans Bay depot, Narooma and Batemans Bay visitor centres and the Mogo Book Store.

Council’s environmental education officer Bernadette Davis said the calendar was a great teaching device that kept on giving.

“It’s a great opportunity for us to work with local schools and to allow the students to become the teachers,” she said.

“About 500 students research the theme with help from us and their teachers and they come up with slogans and drawings that deliver an environmental message.

“The 6,000 copies of the calendar then hang in many homes and offices throughout the shire and beyond, helping to educate the community on ways they can reduce what is sent to landfill by composting kitchen scraps in their own backyard.

“By composting we can reduce the pressure on our local landfill sites and improve soil at the same time.”

The calendar’s artists are: Tiffany Johnston (St Peter’s Anglican College), Caitlin Lake (Batemans Bay Public), Ellie Hudson (Sunshine Bay Public), Samantha Ellis (St Mary’s Primary), Chloe Dunn (Broulee Public), Allidia Jessop (Mogo Public), Ruby Bartley-Nkali (Bodalla Public), Gabby Furlon (St Peter’s Anglican College), Evie Theodore (St Bernard’s Primary School), Joe Byard (Narooma Public), Chloe Tyrell (Narooma Public), Tilly Shorter (Moruya Public), Luke de Somerville (Central Tilba Public), Leah Patton (St Peter’s Anglican College and Xian Fernandez (St Mary’s Primary).