🦎 Affordable school holiday events

Plus genetics might hold the key to how we can reduce cow burps and farts.

Author

Jacob Wallace
September 19, 2025

⏱️ This edition of our newsletter is a 6-minute read.

👋 Hey Gippslanders, it’s Jacob here.

🐄 In this Friday edition of our newsletter we’re talking about solar panel recycling, who will win the AFL grand final, and how are we going to stop cow’s burping.

🍰 It’s been another busy week here at the Monitor. On Wednesday, I compiled a list of affordable school holiday events to keep the kids and yourselves entertained during the upcoming break.

🎤 I also spoke to Marc Murphy from solar panel recycling company Elecsome yesterday. The Kilmany facility is currently running a pilot program which is trying to figure out the most effective ways to process retired solar panels.

☀️ Murphy told me the panels are 97 percent-and-above recyclable and Elecsome turns most of the panel into a sand they call solarcrete. This product acts as a replacement for concrete in construction and has already been tested in Melbourne’s North East Link tunnel.

🏉 When I was in Leongatha earlier this week I asked locals who they thought would win the upcoming AFL grand final. There wasn’t a lot of love for Collingwood or Geelong and lots of Demon’s fans seemed pretty uninterested.

Take a look at the video I made out of my interviews with locals below.

🚀 WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

🧺 MARKETS 🍩

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🚀 Alright, let’s jump into the Monitor’s latest stories, informative interviews and fun videos!

✍️ HEARD THIS WEEK👂

South Gippsland MP Danny O’Brien remembers the first time someone told him there was a rough sleeper in Sale.

“It’s a really tragic situation [that] once upon a time you never saw in country towns,” he told the Gippsland Monitor.

“In the 11 years I've been an MP there's been a massive increase in the number of actual rough sleepers in our country's communities, which was something that a decade or two ago you just did not see.”

New data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIWH) found across Victoria, 24,530 children received support from homelessness services in 2023-24.

👨‍🌾 WATCH: Gippsland farmers are months behind schedule

On September 2, Farmers for Climate Action published a study using responses from more than 600 farmers and 140 agricultural representatives nationwide.

The study found climate change was a top concern for 57 percent of Australian farmers. The second and third concerns were bureaucracy (16 percent) and rising costs (15 percent).

Take a look at the video I made on the survey and how climate change is impacting agriculture below.

 🧸 Affordable School Holiday Activities 🚂

Keeping the kids entertained over the forthcoming school holiday break (September 22 - October 3) will be a logistical and financial challenge for many local parents and carers, so we’ve compiled a list of reasonably-priced activities to keep the family entertained.

🎥 WATCH: How do we reduce cow burps and farts? 🐄

Zara, a reporter from our sister publication the West Vic Brolga made a video about how genetics might hold the answer to deceasing the amount of methane produced from cows.

Check our Zara’s video on the topic below.

Thanks for catching up with us this week at the Gippsland Monitor. I hope you enjoyed this issue of our newsletter.

If you know of any local stories that you think are being under-reported in the news then send us an email at [email protected] and who knows, it might end up in this newsletter next week.

We’ll be back with more Gippsland yarns, what’s on lists, entertaining videos, and good times next week.

Have a great weekend.

Cheers,
Jacob & the Gippsland Monitor team