CIGARETTE butts and vapes, alcohol bottles and coffee cups littered Beaudesert’s footpaths, garden beds and gutters when local teenagers took matters into their own hands on Clean Up Australia Day.
Students and staff from McAuley College collected four big bags of rubbish in about two hours when they volunteered their Sunday morning to take part in the national initiative on March 3.
Students Euan Bamford Finnie, Owen Rosengreen, Tegan Zveglic and Chloe Storr, who are members of McAuley’s Enviro Club, participated alongside teacher Zac Cunningham and Chaplain Jess O’Donoghue.
They walked from Jubilee Park to Davidson Park to collect the rubbish, finding cigarette butts were particularly in abundance in the town’s garden beds.
Mr Cunningham, who was site supervisor for the Clean Up Australia Day event, said they found the most rubbish in areas not close to rubbish bins.
The group spoke about how caring for the environment, town pride and happiness were among their motivations for doing Clean Up Australia Day.
“This is our community, we want it to be clean, we want our people to be happy,” said Tegan.
“If it’s not clean it’ll just get worse and worse and nobody’s going to be happy in a dirty town.”
Euan said everyone could make a difference year-round.
“Even if you don’t show up on Clean Up Australia Day or you don’t feel crazy about picking up other people’s rubbish, anything you do, even just putting your own rubbish in the bin or recycling can help,” he said.
“Most people think, ‘oh what I do won’t make a difference’ but it does make a difference and it takes one person to think that and for that positive attitude to spread and then everyone’s making a change.”
The group said it was about setting a good example for the rest of the town.
“We’re not picking up rubbish just so people can litter again. We’re picking up rubbish because it sets an example for people to go, ‘oh, I can’t put my rubbish there, it’s a clean space and therefore I’ll respect it,” said Ms O’Donoghue.
