Cyclone Ului crossed the Queensland coast near Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays, north of Mackay, packing winds of more than 200-kilometres-an-hour. As boats washed ashore at Shute Harbour, and about 60,000 homes were blacked out across the region, the State Emergency Service (SES) has taken more than 750 calls for help. Extra SES crews will be sent to north Queensland to help with the clean-up following the impact of ex-Tropical Cyclone Ului. Council work crews have now started the massive clean-up and extra SES crews are coming in from Townsville and Brisbane.

About 55,000 homes lost power so restoring power will take some time. Ergon Energy spokesman Bob Pleash says crews are still assessing the damage. The localized flooding is not the current priority, with about 20 houses damaged by the flooding, most of the calls taken were about fallen trees.

“Getting the homes with trees on them as safe as possible is the priority”, says Mackay SES controller Justin Englert.

Mackay Airport remained closed as officials assessed the damage, but nearby Hamilton Island (which had been lashed by gale force winds) did not seem to have experienced any damage to boats at the Marina.

Mackay Mayor Col Meng has asked for more SES volunteers for the region over the next week to help relieve staff.

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A report on environmental trends says that each year every Australian creates one ton of rubbish, making the nation the second largest waste creator after the United States.

21 million tons of solid waste were put in landfills each year, equal to about 1.146 tons a person annually, or 3.14 kilograms a person each day. A significant amount of this was material classified as hazardous, such as old batteries, which people throw out with the rest of their household garbage.

A report on Australia’s biodiversity earlier this year found that nearly 1600 species are in danger of extinction because of human activities such as land clearing.

Consumption of water and energy throughout Australia is at a record high, and is likely to continue while standards of living are high, the Australian Bureau of Statistics report says. The bureau found that “in terms of sustainability, high resource consumption and increasing outputs of wastes are important features of Australian society and are related to the nation’s growing population and increasingly high standard of living”.

Environmental groups called for the creation of a “sustainability council” to address the country’s resource-guzzling habits, saying not enough was being done to encourage people to live in way that was less damaging to the environment.

Greenhouse gas emissions had risen 17.4 per cent between 1990 and 1999, from 390 million tons of carbon dioxide and its equivalents to 458 million tons. Domestic power consumption, including car use, accounted for one third of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Recent reports have highlighted Sydney’s increasing hunger for power but environmental groups have criticised the State Government for failing to adopt aggressive demand-management programs.

The director of the Total Environment Centre, Jeff Angel, said energy planners and governments needed to “lead the way to reduce Australia’s excessive share of greenhouse gas emissions”. “Demand can be easily reduced by energy efficiency programs if government and industry have the will to make them happen,” Mr Angel said.

The bureau did note Australians were recycling more, and more people had also indicated they were prepared to buy organically grown fruit and vegetables, which use less water and fewer chemicals.