Clean Up Australia Day was today, and I helped out at the McMahons Point site. Despite the beautiful backdrop of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, the amount of rubbish absolutely disgusted me. Cigarette butts, bottles, cups, bottle caps. It's not accidental, either. We found bottles metres into bushes, which makes it clear that people deliberately threw them in. I can't understand how people can behave in such a way.
This is an example of the effect of people's littering:
This was taken at a private beach near McMahons Point – rubbish chucked into the harbour wound up at this tiny beach. We spent a good half hour cleaning all of it up, with one of our team members even wading into the water to collect the floating rubbish.
The day was also somewhat marred by the arrival of a group of people and an MTV film crew. A few minutes of research revealed that they were filming the reality show "Real World 19″.
Regardless, we picked up a lot of rubbish, and the areas were looking a lot cleaner after we left – for that, I can be glad!
