On Sunday, for the first time in very many months I had cause to feel so good about all Australian news of the day.

Choosing just a few, firstly Queenslander Ashleigh Barty became our first Australian grand slam tennis champion in a long while - and only our fourth ever - winning the French Open in straight sets.

Not only Australian, but also the first indigenous tennis star since Evonne Goolagong in 1971 (who I had the pleasure of knowing in school), Barty showed true professionalism, respect for the team behind her and no bad behaviour that often so mars sport star performance. Go girl.

In later news, Australian champion Dylan Alcott won the French open quad wheelchair title - his eighth grand slam!

Second came two good news stories on the vexed issue of waste.

West Australian company Omega Lamb has spent $3 million in the quest for feed solutions based on "mottainai", a Japanese term for regret over wasting something useful!

The result is lamb production married with other crops, making feed from imperfect otherwise-dumped carrots, plus grazing sheep in olive groves to harvest fallen leaves and weeds. So simple yet effective!

Next, Kwinana council, south of Perth, has generated international interest for their 'drain socks' - a brilliantly simple pollution solution involving nets on drain outlets, collecting litter and debris before it reaches waterways.

I've passed this info to our council in the hopes we might adopt it (like recently with the Oz invented 'sea bin' rubbish collector).

Council already uses more traditional methods to capture pollutants before stormwater enters waterways - either Gross Pollutant Traps or the delightfully named SQIDS - stormwater quality improvement devices.

The others only capture litter, but SQIDS also capture nutrients, heavy metals, oils and greases.

I'm a fan of good news, and no apologies.

Cr Intemann's stories from a civic heart are her opinions and not necessarily council's.

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