At the Orion shopping centre at Springfield kids are given Recycled bottles from VISY Packaging where they make mini pot plants.  The Ipswich City Council provided Australian Native saplings and seeds for this project.  These plants are taken home, when ready, the parents are asked to plant the Australian natives in their back yard.

As we leave the Orion Springfield shopping centre, the Mayor is pretty excited after checking out the new 3rd Generation Toyota Prius.

Our next stop is the University of Southern Queensland, where Lee joins addresses school student on the Toyota Tree Day program.  The university not only have Lee speaking but also people from NASA and Keep Australia Beautiful all talking to our next generation on sustainabilty issues here and in space.

After presenting to the students about Australia's Greenest Car, the Toyota Prius, 4 students are recognised out of the 350 students for their project work submitted.  Lee presents them with Toyota Tree Day gift pack.

After the lecture Lee, the Professor, the 4 winners and 350 student do the Toyota Wave !

On our way across the city we stop at Llewellyn Toyota where we stop out the front of their dealership, which has won an award for best adaptive reuse of a building.   Out the front of the heritage listed Mines Rescuse building the the 3rd Generation Toyota Prius is Lee with Llewellyn Toyota's dealer principal Wade Llewellyn and Cr Cheryl Bromage who is responsible for the Environment and Conservation strategies for the council.

PS... She is a huge fan and helped by promoting the environmental and conservation initiatives across the city of this progressive council.

Our biggest project on the day is at the Ipswich Girls Grammar School.  The school had a devastating fire and has just completed a multimillion dollar rebuild.  Today's Tree planting was recognised by the Principal, Head of Junior School, President of the P&F, Ipswich Council and of course the students!

The guy in the red shirt is Nick Westwood, Manager from Horticultural section of The Bremer Institute of TAFE, special thanks to Nick and his team of students who have been on site most of today and on Wednesday so the planting today could happen.  In partnership with the Ipswich City Council over 200 trees were planted on "the steepest hill" not only contributing to the atmosphere but also to helping with land erosion.

Ipswich Girls Grammar School's Eco Warriors are a group in the school who focus on world environmental projects.  They were the drivers of the days activities and spoke to Lee about there shared interest in the environment and conservation. 

Lee and Cr Bromage plant the 1st tree in South East Queensland's 1st Carbon Sink.  This huge area which will form part of a green spine which runs through the city of Ipswich.  In the future it will provide carbon credits for the city's benefit.

This is truly a historic event for Tree day as Lee, Toyota and the Council have kicked off a very important initiative that should be adopted by every council.

At the end of a huge day, the 3rd Generation Prius (who hardly used any fuel) gets to be main attraction (apart from Lee of course!) at the Innovation and Sustainability Expo.  The Prius is surrounded by over 60 exhibitors, we all have a common ground - solutions that help protect our environment.

A great day is finished off with Lee singing "Boys from the Bush" with our Mayor getting Lee to cut a new track the "Ipswich" version !