Place: Ballarat Date: May 2008 Author: Emily Dunbar Year Level: Yr 12 School: Ballarat Secondary College – Barkly Senior Campus
Environmental issues: Population growth
There have been so many changes in the world since I was young. I’m now 71 and as time goes on it becomes more obvious that the world is suffering. When I was a child no one really had running taps, everyone lived on tank water and it was nice, fresh and clean water. We would swim in the rivers all the time and it was always clear and clean water we swam in. Once a year we would get floods, the rivers would over flow and the water would come right up to our front doors.
Every family had a backyard the size of a paddock on their property. Every house was made of wood. We would walk and ride our bikes everywhere. My father owned a horse and cart and he would use that to get us around the town. Our light source was just a kerosene lamp and a few candles, there was no problem with green house gas because no one had lights, air conditioners or refrigerators. We kept all our cool foods in a cool gardie, which is a safe in the ground that was covered by wet towels; it really did keep everything cool.
I’ve watched Ballarat grow from a small country town to a city. The population has increased dramatically and there are a wider range of cultures...as more people came so did the pollution. We never had plastic bags. The only form of take-away was fish and chips, and that came in newspaper. It never did taste the same after they stopping wrapping it in newspaper.
