Eve Lamb
All who like seeing Castlemaine and surrounds clean and litter-free will have a top chance to help make it happen when Clean Up Australia Day takes place on Sunday March 6.
Already a couple of keen local groups have registered to take part, but there’s still time for others to register a site to clean up.
Among the regulars who have already registered sites via the national Clean Up Australia website are the Castlemaine’s Girl Guides group.
The guides group has been participating in the annual day for about 30 years and welcomes all members of the community to roll up to their site meeting point at the guides hall in Kennedy Street and participate on the day.
“We will go from 2pm to 3.15 pm and even though it’s just a short amount of time we always collect a lot of rubbish,” site coordinator Alex Dannatt says.
“Anyone can join us but they just need to sign in with us on the day.”
“We break into two groups and one goes around the Camp Reserve area and one does along Kennedy Street to the railway station,” Castlemaine guides leader Julie Colley says.
“We get bags and bags of rubbish,” Julie says.
“And the council takes all our rubbish away,” Alex adds.
Alex and Julie say that over the years they’ve been participating in the national clean up day they’ve cleansed the Kennedy Street precinct of all manner of litter ranging from significant quantities of plastic packaging, coffee cups and bottles to a discarded couch.
While all participants are advised to wear sun protection and sturdy footwear, and to bring gloves if possible, they will be provided with high vis vests and official rubbish collection bags on the day.
The guides group even has an annual icy pole tradition to help enjoy a job well done.
Meanwhile, the Friends of Campbells Creek have also registered a clean up site focused on collecting rubbish along the creek and its trails.
Anyone interested can go onto the Clean Up Australia website and register a new site they’d like to clean up – or find out more about any of the existing registered sites to join.