Great Northern Australia Clean up Day

The chief of Clean Up Australia, Ian Kiernan, has just visited Cairns to help launch the first Great Northern Australia Cleanup Day, which will be on 3rd and 4th October.

If you've taken part in Clean Up Australia before, it was usually in the first week of March, but it often rains and is way too hot and humid.

Many people, including the new Cairns Regional Council, wanted to change the date so it better reflected the climate up here and also served the needs for a pre-cyclone clean up.

The following communities and cities across Northern Australia, will now have their own clean up day in early October:

• Shire of Broome, Burdekin Shire Council, Cairns Regional Council
  Darwin City Council, Hinchinbrook Shire Council, Port Hedland Council, Tablelands Regional Council, Townsville City Council, Whitsunday Regional Council, Shire of Roebourne, Katherine Town Council.

It not only avoids the heat, mosquitoes and floods that can interfere a clean up day in March, but it's easier to get access to creeks and waterways prior to the cyclone season.

The Council, which has always supported the event, is keen to get more involved this year. Community groups, businesses and individuals seem to come together for this great initiative to help their local environment.

You'll need to register a site online, or telephone 1800 282 329.

The Great Northern Clean up day was launched at the Turtle Rehabilitation Centre in Tingira Street, Portsmith. You could see what happens to turtles who swallow rubbish, including plastics and other rubbish thrown into waterways or drain. Large turtles with Floater's Disease are being monitored at the centre. They have consumed plastics, netting, fishing lines, that were lodged in their stomachs. Once rehabilitated, they're returned to the wild.

So get a group together for the clean up next weekend. After all, Council appears to have thrown out a few things, and this one, oh, and this one, that it didn't want over the last few months.