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Started by a Yachty for Sydney Harbour, Clean Up Australia Day needs to change tac

Started by a Yachty for Sydney Harbour, Clean Up Australia Day needs to change tac

It's time sail this day out to sea and make this 2019 the LAST Clean up Australia day. Ever.

When Ian Kiernen went to yachty heaven in 2018, he would have been the happiest man on St Nicholas' timber yacht if he'd taken Clean Up Australia day with him.

To really clean up Australia, we need to consign Clean Up Australia Day to the trash can (not the ocean trash can). Living clean is not about someone else cleaning up our backyard and harbour one day a year. It's about us cleaning up our own shit so no one else needs to do it.

Clean Up Australia Day turns 30 next year and quite frankly that's embarrassing.  How is it possible that after 30 years we still haven't learned how to clean up our own mess? It's time for Clean Up Australia Day to do a Logan’s Run and bow out at 30. (Look that up Millennials. You'll want to act real fast.)

No no one should be excited to celebrate a 30 year milestone birthday and Ian Kiernan would have been the first person to say that the event should have gone to heaven with him, following a life well lived.

Seriously, celebrating the length of a campaign-based charity’s life, especially when it's spotlighting bad behaviour, is counter-intuitive. Back in 1989, the concept was radical, and genius, and helmed by the most likeable yachty you’ll ever meet. And it got a lot of public traction.

TALK ABOUT “SEE A NEED, FILL A NEED”. IAN KIERNAN SOUGHT TO CLEAN UP HIS OWN BACKYARD, WHICH JUST HAPPENED TO BE SYDNEY HARBOUR. HE ALSO SAW THE BIGGER PICTURE AND A NATIONAL CLEAN-UP DAY WAS BORN.


What changed?

Kiernan’s passion-project honed the nation’s thinking and efforts towards litter management, and hoped to shift our mindset to one of personal responsibility when it came to rubbish disposal.

A staggering 300,000 volunteers turned out for the Clean Up Australia Day in 1990 – that’s a level of engagement today’s newly birthed campaigns could only dream about. Since 1990 Clean Up Australia Day has been a staple on many eco-consumers’ calendars, particularly for green-minded parents modeling appropriate behaviour for their kids. Kiernan designed the project as an instrument of change. But in the end, what has it changed? 

Bad habits not dying out

Clean Up Australia Day certainly celebrates environmental do-gooders. But does it simply demarcate further those that care and those that don’t?

In the space of 30 years, one can argue the intergenerational change expected to happen didn’t. If your parents threw rubbish out the car window when you where a kid, what are the chances you do the same now?  Did responsible rubbish disposal became relegated to one really big, prolific but nonetheless solitary day of the year?

Data & Rubbish Everywhere

There’s no doubt Clean Up Australia Day has galvanised the community into action. Good action. Great action. One of Clean Up Australia Day’s greatest gifts has been its data. We get bag loads of data about what is rubbish is collected which, after 29 years, one hoped would be decreasing.  Guess what, its not. It's just changing. And we know that because there is plenty of rubbish to count and published data to prove it. 

More people are involved in the collection (over 708,000 in 2018 up from 590,000 in 2017) and they are simply collecting more litter (almost 17,000 ute-loads up from 15,500 in 2017 – so Aussie to measure by Ute loads).

Plastics made up 39% of all rubbish collected in 2018 and cigarette butts 14%. In 1991, plastics made up 35% and cigarette butts more than 30%. We can’t seem to manage to get those plastics into recycle bins, for some ridiculous reason - or probably there is simply just more plastic. The good news is that cigarette butts are slowly sinking, which is just as well because each butt reputedly poisons 7 litres of water.

Reporting rubbish counts has become standard, not behavioural change

In all fairness, Clean Up Australia Day does report on behaviour change - what we are doing better & worse, what rubbish is increasing and decreasing. But  we need to find a way to behave better - to shift focus to un-littering in the first place.


Clean Up Australia Day makes good media. It's a standard script, so an easy story and it makes people feel good.

“TODAY A RECORD [INSERT NUMBER] VOLUNTEERS TURNED OUT PICK UP AN ESTIMATED [INSERT NUMBER] TONNES OF RUBBISH ACROSS AUSTRALIA. THE MAIN PIECES OF RUBBISH COLLECTED THIS YEAR WERE [RUBBISH ITEM 1], [RUBBISH ITEM 2] AND [RUBBISH ITEM 3].” 

The audience glows with feel good vibes as we seem to think that is a good news story, which is usually affirmed by its placement at the end of a bulletin to leave us upbeat after hearing all the other shit going on in the world.  The story will almost always get a run because the event is held on a Sunday – a slow news days normally.

The best Clean Up Australia Day script would make people feel even better

“TODAY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF VOLUNTEERS TURNED OUT TO CLEAN UP AUSTRALIA AND WERE SHOCKED TO FIND THERE WAS NO RUBBISH TO COLLECT”,  ACCOMPANIED BY FOOTAGE OF HIGH-VIZ VEST-WEARING POLLIES LOOKING PERPLEXED (CEPT TONY, WHO THINKS CLIMATE CHANGE IS A JOKE), BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T SEE THE ARRIVAL OF THE END COMING." 

A place for thank you

There is an aspect to Clean Up Australia Day that truly is charitable, and that is helping those who are a victim of circumstance.  Should we be picking up after our irreverent fellow humans in public areas, schools, business places? Or should we really focus on helping those who suffer dearly due to our actions? Our ocean residents. 

Packaging, plastic bags, bottles, cans, straws, disposable cups and cigarette butts are still the main categories of waste that are collected by Clean Up Australia Day volunteers. And these items directly affect the lives of our wildlife and water life and no matter who is behaving badly and learning slowly, for that, Clean Up Australia Day, we say a massive thank you!

And a place for No thank you

Unfortunately the facts are that it is bullshit that the rubbish is still there in the first place, and therefore, so is Clean Up Australia Day. Running around, cleaning up after us as if we are toddlers. It's toddler (litter) management when what we need is better toddler learning and behaviour (litter prevention).

I am pretty sure that Clean Up Australia organisers would agree that the ultimate goal would be one where a national clean up day didn’t exist at all. After all, no one likes cleaning up, especially after terminally dirty people or other people's naughty toddlers, do they? 

Here's a takeaway tip

Clean up your own act first: charity begins at home. If you are going to do Clean Up Australia Day, focus on an area where rubbish is harming wildlife or destroying an ecosystem. Fish can’t pick up waste: they just eat it and don’t have hands or anything resembling opposable digits. 

Step-up Parents, set a good example all year round, not a token activity once a year.


Images: Sanyo Maris 2018 by Rolex | Ian Kiernan - SMH | Sydney Harbour - Unsplash / Holger LInk | Graph & School Children - Clean Up Australia | Beach - Unsplash / Glen Jackson
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