'Clean Up Australia Day' in the Nambucca

And one local has been doing his bit to hold up Nambucca’s end of the Clean Up Australia Day bargain.

Yesterday Richard* collected enough rubbish to fill the inside of a sedan, and he did it in just over an hour, on the northbound on-ramp beside the new Nambucca Heads Service Centre.

Richard has been picking up rubbish around the shire for the last six years.

He said the vast majority of what he found yesterday was fast food packaging.

After filling 11 bags in a 300 metre section of road, he’s right to point out that the centre’s recently-installed anti-littering signage doesn’t appear to be working.

But there’s another item that has been making more and more frequent appearances.

“Those red and green P-plates and L-plates are becoming rather endemic to Giinagay Way,” he said.

“I think it’s a government program that should be looked at.

“Maybe they could institute a deposit scheme, where you get your money back when you return the plate.”

He is still concerned about the numbers of cigarette butts and bait bags he finds at the V-Wall – both of which pose a high risk to marine life.

But it’s not all bad news, Richard said he’s seen a marked reduction in street litter since December, which he believes could be an early result in favour of the Container Deposit Scheme.

“Riverside Dr, Stuart Island, Bellwood Park, even doing the beaches – it’s hard to find rubbish now,” he said.

And he’s keen to continue his environmental efforts.

“What’s nice about it is that people come and thank you, and, you know it sounds silly, but it does make you feel good,” he said. 

Richard believes that educating young people about the consequences of littering might help to erode some of society’s reflexive or addiction-fuelled habits.

During a week of action over 587,962 volunteers have joined together to protect their local environment and clean up the parks, waterways, beaches, bushland and roadways that are important to them at more than 7,253 locations across Australia.

This is a 14 percent increase in site and 4 percent increase in volunteer numbers over 2017.

Ian Kiernan AO, Chairman and Founder of Clean Up Australia said how proud he was to see so many Australians continuing to rally to the cause.

“It’s really great to see so many people passionate about removing rubbish from the places that are important to them,” Ian Kiernan said.

“Because that’s the beauty of a Clean Up – people tell us where the rubbish is accumulating and we give them the support to make a difference. Young or old – anyone can be involved.

“But we need to do much more than just pick up rubbish one day a year. Every day is Clean Up Australia Day - so let today simply be the start of your Clean Up journey.

“Making a real difference starts with looking more closely at our personal purchasing behaviour, becoming conscious of the single use products, packaging and plastics that we buy and then discard.

“We need to continue to challenge our governments to implement effective waste management and recycling programs to reduce the amount of wasted resource that ends up in our precious environment.

Our Clean Up activities provide vital community led data and feedback that influences decision makers.”

Since the event started 28 years ago Australians have donated more than 33 million volunteer hours, removing the equivalent of 350 thousand ute loads of rubbish from over 178 thousand sites across the country.

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Results in progress predict volunteers will have removed the equivalent of nearly 16,000 thousand ute-loads of rubbish over the last week - just the beginning of what is shaping up to be an outstanding effort in 2018.

Donations can be made online www.cleanupaustraliaday.org.au/ by following the prompt

 *Last name omitted for privacy