Clean Up Australia Day – let’s make it fun
Filed under: community, consumer, environment, lifestyle, recycling
I recently learnt that there are approximately 40,000 rubbish bins in Victoria – that’s one bin for every 132 people! Despite the number of bins, around 350,000 cigarette butts are washed into Port Phillip Bay each day.
This made me wonder why people litter? Numerous surveys have been conducted to reveal the reasons some of which include the following:
- People think the item is not litter (cigarettes, food scraps).
- People are not willing to look for a bin.
- Lack of social pressure to do the right thing.
- Absence of realistic penalties or consistent enforcement.
It’s timely to be talking about litter as it’s Clean Up Australia Day on Sunday 6th March. For more than 20 years, Clean-Up Australia Day is one of the largest community participation events in the country. Almost 300,000 volunteers turned out on the first Clean Up Australia Day in 1990 and that involvement has steadily increased ever since.
Last year 15,560 tonnes of rubbish was removed from beaches, waterways, parks and bushland by more than 588,000 volunteers at more than 7,000 registered sites around Australia. I take my hat off to Ian Kiernan who keeps plugging away in an ongoing effort to change people’s attitudes and behaviours towards litter.
Telstra staff have always been very active in Clean-Up Australia day, reflecting our employees commitment to the environment. Last year more than 80 Telstra staff got involved. This year we are hoping to for a similar commitment.
Do you think we could get more people to throw their rubbish into a bin by making it a fun thing to do? The creative folk from “The Fun Theory” tested out this hypothesis by modifying a regular rubbish bin located in a park by adding sound effects as people threw their rubbish into the bin (watch the 30 second video – it’s pretty funny). The results were phenomenal – 72 kg were collected in one day from their bin! That’s just 41 kgs more than the normal bin only a small distance away. This demonstrates that if you make something fun to do, you can achieve the desired behavioural change.
Sign up to volunteer
There is still a huge need for community help to clean up Brisbane and Clean Up Australia Day gives you the chance to volunteer for both flood affected and non-flood affected areas.
Help make this year Brisbane’s biggest ever Clean Up Australia Day event and volunteer at a Brisbane council priority flood clean up site!
Did you know you can easily contribute to cleaning up Australia by recycling your old mobile phones? Components from your handset can be made into new, useful items like new batteries, jewellery and even fence posts, and recycling helps prevent unnecessary landfill. You can recycle your mobile phones in two easy ways – hand ‘em in or post ‘em in – click here to find out how!
While I think Clean Up Australia Day is a FANTASTIC initiative I strongly believe every day should be keep Australia clean day. I simply do not understand why people place their cigarette butts on the ground. It is not hard to place it in a bin. Several years ago the Stonnington Council ran a great campaign where they distributed personal, portable butt bins. I still have mine and on the odd occasion I have been with a smoker, I have whipped it out as I see the cigarette in being extinguished. The look on their face is priceless. Maybe we should all have one in our bags to whip out. Another initiative I would like to see on a more regular basis is our train operator Metro clean along the tracks both at and between stations. It is disgusting. Just think how many tourists travel on our trains and this is the garbage they see. Embarressing. I do love the idea of talking bins. Bring it on.
I’ve seen those portable butt bins – they’re a terrific idea!
Perhaps the next public event Telstra is involved in could hand them out. I would gladly wear the Telstra flag and do it. You can get them logoed.