Clean Up Australia Day: An Opportunity Day for Me
As a part of my Australian Science Challenge Awards, I had to partake in a social event. Seeing that BEN was organizing a team for their Clean Up Australia Day event, I took the opportunity. On the 3rd March, my father drove me to Glebe Park, Canberra, where the event was held. There, I met others from a group called ‘’The Way to Happiness’’. They are a group who, too, participate in such social activities.
After socializing we began the clean up. Into the clean up, we got ACT Minister Shane Rattenbury with us. This gave me an opportunity to talk to the Minister about the Clean Up Australia Day event and other environmental issues including climate change. Truly speaking, I have learnt a lot from him.
He explained how Australians dump a lot of rubbish, simply making Australia look ugly. Aside from that, he too explained how this affects the wildlife in a variety of ways such as plastic hazards for birds and dirty waterways. So the advantages of Clean Up Australia are to make Australia look beautiful as well as preventing environmental harm.
One thing Mr Rattenbury said that stood out was that Australians dump litter much too often. This is a sad truth because Clean Up Australia Day records indicate that the rubbish collection is increasing per year. However, on the positive side is that more and more people have become aware of this, and are participating in Clean- Up Australia Day activities.
In our conversation, we then moved on to how Australia faces climate change internationally. Mr Rattenbury admitted that Australia is one of the greatest emitters of greenhouse gases per capita. With this in mind, it is clear that Australia has a lot to do when it comes to climate change. He mentioned how Australia exports a great amount of coal overseas, therefore contributing to global greenhouse emissions. It is his view that an alternative to exporting coal is to export clean green energy like solar technology.
As our conversation moved to a more scientific view, Mr Rattenbury pointed out how the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change and other scientists around the world are predicting that there will be a difficult future if climate change eventuates. The science behind this is becoming more and more apparent and the consequences will be severe for human kind. Mr Rattenbury said that all countries have a major part to play, big or small to prevent this from happening. Rich countries, like Australia, can not sit out and say it’s too difficult.
We concluded that Clean Up Australia Day could potentially become an international event. This is because many other countries suffer rubbish problems. Not only that, but Clean Up Australia Day is a great day for community participation and can raise awareness in people about littering problems. This will, ultimately, lead to them to stop littering.
