HASTINGS residents again joined in Clean Up Australia Day on Sunday, despite continued rain during the day.
Volunteers combed dozens of different areas, coming away with an eclectic collection of just about any item capable of being discarded.
Even the seabed came in for some attention, with divers from the Port Macquarie Underwater Research Group searching the area near the public jetty in Port Macquarie. Despite the fact that this has become a yearly event for them, the divers still found plenty of rubbish to keep them busy, including shopping trolleys and skateboards.
In all, a total of 572,406 registered volunteers donned gloves and picked up a bag to remove rubbish from around 7140 sites across the nation.
Since the national event started in 1990 Australians have donated more than a million hours towards caring for the environment through Clean Up Australia Day, by removing an estimated 288,650 tonnes of rubbish from 145,754 sites across the country.
Chairman and founder of Clean Up Australia Ian Kiernan AO said Clean Up Australia Day always made him proud to be an Australian.
“We are not scared to put ourselves in the picture, get involved and get our hands dirty,” Mr Kiernan said.
“This is a great community event bringing together friends, family, neighbours, team-mates and colleagues. There is no other event like it in the southern hemisphere. We can all be proud of our achievements.
“The number of sites registered this year has increased by 915 across the country.
“Clean Up Australia Day is made possible every year with the support of all sectors of the community – councils, corporates, local business and most of all our volunteers who work tirelessly every year to make the event a success.
“As demonstrated again, these volunteers continue to find a staggering number of cigarette butts and recyclables such as glass, plastics and paper continuing to rubbish our parks, beaches, waterways and road-sides.”
Statistics for the amount of rubbish collected in the Hastings area were not available from council at the time of going to press.
