Volunteers help sweep the state of litter

An army of NSW volunteers have hit the ground running today to help clean up the state’s streets, parks and waterways, for this year’s Clean Up Australia Day, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said today.

Ms Berejiklian and NSW Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton joined volunteers today at Clifton Gardens Reserve, Mosman, to say thank you.

“Clean Up Australia Day is a great initiative that gets the community together, helps the environment and sends a positive message about litter prevention and reduction,” Ms Berejiklian said.

NSW is almost halfway towards meeting the Premier’s Priority target, set in 2013-2014, of reducing litter volume by 40 per cent by 2020.

Ms Upton said the introduction of a landmark 10-cent container deposit scheme this year will make a huge difference in the cleaning up NSW.

“There’s a message in the bottle this Clean Up Australia Day, and that’s ‘look out drink container litter, the container deposit scheme is coming’,” Ms Upton said.

“This is the last year Clean Up Australia Day volunteers will be sweeping our streets, parks and beaches of litter before a container deposit scheme helps clean our streets and creates an opportunity for regional charities and sporting organisations to raise money.”

Ms Upton said the 2015-2016 National Litter Index found that 49 per cent of litter by volume was made up of beverage containers – and 43 per cent of the total volume was containers that will be caught by the NSW container deposit scheme.

Clean Up Australia Day Founder Ian Kiernan AO said it was great to know the bottles and cans in parks and roadsides would soon be a thing of the past.

“Instead of seeing rubbish, people will see money,” Mr Kiernan said.