Clean Up Australia Day
On Sunday 7th March an estimated 588,000 volunteers across Australia helped to celebate 20 years of Clean Up Australia by donning a pair of gloves and filling up Clean Up Australia Day rubbish bags with approximately 15,560 tonnes of rubbish.
Every year, from Perth to Penrith, hundreds of thousands of Australians get stuck in and Clean Up their local environment by collecting and removing rubbish on Clean Up Australia Day. This year saw a 6% increase on last years results for registered sites with 7073 sites was across Australia. A big well done to everyone involved!
Ian and the team spent Clean Up Australia Day in Melbourne along with our Partner Parks Victoria to say a big thank you to all Victorians who have supported Clean Up Australia over the last 20 years. The activities on the day focused around troubled waterways which had been plagued by high levels of rubbish washed in by the tides and unfortunately left behind by visitors to the picturesque tourist spots.
Clean Up Australia Day sponsors joined us at each of the sites along with Victorian Premier John Brumby, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Innovation Gavin Jennings, Local MP Martin Foley, State Federal MP Michael Denby, local Mayors, St Kilda player Farren Ray and Ronald McDonald.
Parks Victoria
Clean Up Australia again partnered with Parks Victoria to deiver a Campaign to Help Clean Up Victoria's Bays and Rivers.
On Sunday 7th March Ian and the Clean Up Team visited a handful of the 120 sites registered for the campaign with help from approximately 7000 volunteers.
The first site visited was Jawbone Marine Sanctuary in Williamstown. This is a beautiful area but with a high rubbish problem due to the incoming todes washing up discarded litter. Volunteers from Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, Friends of Jawbone Marine Sanctuary and the Mayor of Hobson Bay City Council pulled on their gloves and helped to fill plenty of rubbish bags to help Clean Up this beautiful sanctuary.
A little further down the shoreline of the Port Phillip Bays, over 30 volunteers from Veolia and McDonalds, including Ronald McDonald himself helped to Clean Up the Forechore in Port Melbourne at Lagoon Pier. The teams were joined by State Federal MP Michael Denby and Local MP Martin Foley both of whom carried on with the Clean Up activities at St Kilda West Beach.
Ian joined another team from Veolia at the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron and whilst a common interest in sailing was shared the main topic of conversation turned to the amount of waste washed up on the forshore, in particular cigarette butts. Ian walked along the foreshore picking up rubbish along with members of the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron and Veolia staff.
A number of community groups, including Earthcare St Kilda, involved in a Clean Up at St Kilda West Beach were joined by Ian to tackle the piles of recyclable plastic bottles, glass bottles and cigarette butts left to pollute the beach. Other high profile people also joined the site including Gavin Jennings the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Mayor of Port Phillip Frank O'Connor, St Kilda FC player Farren Ray and Victorian Premier John Brumby.
The campaign overall was a great success.
How to get involved
Clean Up Australia encourages Clean Ups throughout the year, so if you have missed out on the official Clean Up Australia Day you can still register for another day and receive your Clean Up Kit. To find out more about how to register a site please click here.