By Parker McKenzie
Clean Up Australia Day events are a chance for people from all walks of life to come together and make a difference in their local community.
That is exactly what happened when 17 people joined to clean up The Basin on Sunday 30 April, including teenagers, parents and even a foreign exchange student.
Andrea Vrek and her son Hudson were two of the people who attended the event.
Hudson said he didn’t originally think the event would be fun but had a great time.
“Since Australia has many animals, we need to look after them all,” he said.
“There was one area where there were 60 or 70 bottles of alcohol that were already empty, and lots by the bus stop as well.”
Clean Up Australia, a not-for-profit, has been sponsoring and organising yearly Clean Up Australia Day events since 1990.
Mr Vrek said when she saw the event on Facebook, she invited her sister and a good friend.
“We made it a really fun time because we invited other people we knew we would have fun doing it with,” she said.
“This will be an annual event in The Basin and we’d love for more people to come.”
She said while the event was an opportunity to help out, it’s important to remember to look after the environment every day.
“We often pick up rubbish when we are out walking, it’s just part of our daily practice,” Ms Vrek said.
“If we are at the supermarket shopping centre and there is rubbish, we’ll stop and pick it up and store it in the car until we find a bin.”
When Clean Up events are organised, often local councils — including Yarra Ranges and Knox — will liaise with the organisers to come to remove the rubbish once it has been collected together.
Mr Vrek said while there is hard rubbish collection in Knox, it was disappointing to see people dispose of large items like tyres into nature.
“They cost a little bit of money to dispose of but for the most part, it’s just laziness,” Ms Vrek said.
“You could see the pride on Hudson’s face from just helping out as well.”
