Clean-up concerns over community involvement

Clean-up Australia Day had mixed results in the Narrandera district.

“Landcare was well represented, but the community was not,” said John Primrose, Landcare Narrandera member.

“Those that were there did a really good job. And even in places that you think are good you find a lot in the grass; bottles and wrappers and tomato sauce sachets.

“Even though we promoted it through the community radio and with flyers and the Argus, there were only about four from the general public.

“It does dampen the enthusiasm for the organisers.

“Everyone’s always raving about how beautiful Narrandera is, and no one wants to put any work in,” Mr Primrose said.

Mr Primrose said that Landcare would like to thank the Narrandera Shire Council for their support, and said that the work Council had done for Landcare couldn’t be overstated.

He also said that Landcare Clean-up Australia Day organiser David Marshall had done a tremendous job and had co-ordinated closely with Council.

While community involvement was low, Landcare Narrandera still managed to move an extraordinary amount of rubbish.

“We cleaned a lot of stuff on the Old Wagga Road, between the high school and the Rocky Waterholes,” Mr Primrose said.

“It was a bit disappointing – we’ve cleaned up that area before and we still found a lot of household rubbish. We found TVs.

“It’s interesting – we don’t have a McDonalds in Narrandera, but we found an enormous amount of McDonalds packaging; bags and cups and plastic drinking straws.”

While Landcare might have been disappointed by the lack of turnout, some of the students at Narrandera East Infants Primary School found themselves disappointed by the lack of rubbish.

East Infants took responsibility for picking up rubbish around the Sports Stadium, while following the missives that “we do not go on any roads, and we do not pick up anything dangerous”.

“When I signed the school up for Clean-up Day, we were asked to cleaning up around our school,” said Karen Babbs, principal of East Infants.

“So we decided to clean up the stadium, because we use it a lot, and then pick up rubbish on the way to the school.”

The stadium and the surrounding sports grounds are already quite well looked after, with some students struggling to find any rubbish at all – although they were reassured by Ms Babbs that there was still plenty out there to be found.

All in all, it was a marvellous way to get the next generation involved in keeping Narrandera beautiful.