Clean Up Australia Day 2024 – An incredible community effort!

This is a sponsored article from SustainabilityTracker.com member Clean Up Australia.

Australia’s largest community-based environmental event saw over 10,000 Clean Ups take place across the nation, in an incredible show of support.

From the Torres Strait Islands, to the rainforests of Tassie, from Albany to Yungaburra and places in-between – this Clean Up Australia Day 2024 saw over 750,000 volunteers coming together to help Clean Up their local communities and environment. It was an outstanding effort by volunteers who joined in their droves to roll up their sleeves and remove litter from our cities, rivers, beaches, and bush in a truly special day of community action.

Pip Kiernan, Chair of Clean Up Australia, said: “As we continue to navigate our national waste challenges, the commitment of our amazing volunteers remains essential. Not only are they picking up litter, but their efforts also expose challenges with new waste streams as they emerge.”

“For every piece of litter collected, it is one less in our natural surroundings. Soft plastic pieces, cigarette butts, vapes and single-use plastic beverage bottles are amongst the commonly reported items collected by volunteers who are encouraged at each site to report their findings and you can’t help but be shocked by the scale of what ends up in our environment as litter,” Pip continued.

At a Clean Up site in Rose Bay, Sydney, Pip and community volunteers were joined by the Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, Australian Minister for the Environment and Water, Olympians Sam Fricker and Kerri Pottharst OAM and other guests, who all contributed to the success of the Clean Up. Also present was Rox de Luca, a local artist who regularly scours Rose Bay Beach and Bondi for washed-up plastic fragments and transforms them into vibrant and defiant sculptures.

In Canberra, Clean Up Australia CEO Jenny Geddes GAICD attended a Clean Up in Hackett organised by Terry de Luca, who has been participating in Clean Up Australia Day for over 20 years. “It was a privilege to be joining groups in our nation’s capital and just wonderful to see Canberrans continue to get behind the cause and take practical action to protect and improve our precious environment,” Jenny said. The enthusiastic group was joined by Dr Andrew Leigh MP, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, as well as Greens MLA Rebecca Vassarotti, ACT Minister for the Environment, and Minister for City Services and Member for Ginninderra Tara Cheyne.

In Melbourne, an exciting collaboration between Decathlon and Kayak Melbourne saw more than 30 people jump in double kayaks and head out onto the Yarra River, where they removed litter from the water using pickers and nets, with a particular focus on grabbing bottles which, sadly are regularly deposited under bridges by users of rented watercraft.

Some truly heroic litter removal activity was undertaken by State Emergency Services NSW teams, including a Blue Mountains unit whose Vertical Rescue Team abseiled downslope and bagged material from Yellomundee Regional Park, to remove over 300kgs of litter from places unreachable by foot, in a six-hour operation. “It was a real cliff hanger!”, a representative from the unit said. Found litter included bottles and glass, a long sheet of iron, a number of letter-boxes and a toy car.

In Western Australia, at Caversham Valley Primary School, the P&C provided Containers for Change WA bins throughout the school grounds as part of Clean Up Australia Day activities – in an environmentally strategic move which saw litter converted into a clean recyclate stream! Meanwhile, members of conservational fishing group OzFish in Geographe, WA took Clean Up Australia Day to a whole new level by throwing on the dive gear and heading below the surface to collect rubbish.

In the remote community of Numbulwar, in South Eastern Arnhem Land, NT, students from Numbulwar School, members of the Community Development Program (CDP) and local residents all got involved to ensure the community was rubbish free. “The event fostered a sense of ownership and pride amongst residents, a great example of care and respect for Country,” a representative from Roper Gulf Regional Council said.

All over the country, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community took to the streets in support of Clean Up Australia Day, including large events in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and a youth event in Brisbane, Queensland. Meanwhile, in Tasmania the young 1st Derwent Joey Sea Scout Group really “cleaned up” after finding $10 while removing litter on the Derwent River.

Of course, there are too many sites to mention, with thousands taking place across all states, including over 2700 schools who got involved!

From the bottom of our hearts at Clean Up Australia, we want to say: Thank you for your support! We’re blown away by all your Clean Up endeavours and love hearing about your efforts. We’re looking forward to another year of improving and conserving our environment, eliminating litter, and ending waste.

We couldn’t do it without you!

This is an article from a SustainabilityTracker.com Member. The views and opinions we express here don’t necessarily reflect our organisation.