The Clean Up Australia Day is this Sunday 6 March, with Schools Clean Up Day taking place on Friday 4 March. Of course, let’s not forget that every day is an opportunity to make Australia a cleaner and more beautiful country. 

How will you contribute to cleaning up Australia? 

Getting your entire early learning centre on board to clean up Australia means you can have an even greater impact. Showing children the right way to care for our wonderful land sets them on the path to being advocates for our environment and keeping the country and all occupants great and small happy and healthy. 

Even though we all know that littering is wrong, it continues to be a huge problem in Australia and globally. In fact, in 2020 alone it is estimated that BILLIONS of disposable face masks were thrown out in the world EVERY SINGLE DAY! Clean Up Australia has started a Citizen Science project to try to discover how much of a problem face mask litter is in Australia — you can get involved here.

There are truly countless ways we can all do our part to clean up Australia. Here are just a few tips for centres, educators, children and families to take on board:

Pick it up: It feels unfair to pick up someone else’s rubbish, but it’s also unfair for it to become a harmful risk to wildlife and sea creatures. If you do see litter, try to pick it up and dispose of it appropriately knowing that you have potentially saved an animal who might have mistaken it for food.

Reduce waste: Everything you buy these days seems to be over-packaged in plastic. Where possible try to minimise the packaging that you encounter. This might mean avoiding items that have too much packaging, buying second hand or saying no to a bag and reusing one from your own collection. 

Recycle with care: Recycling alleviates landfill and is the sustainable way of disposing of things. Have plenty of recycling bins at your centre and label them clearly. Sometimes you will be surprised by what can be recycled — aluminium foil for example! Get to know what’s what when it comes to recycling here.

Grow your own: Get children involved with a herb or vegetable garden at your centre — an incredible and valuable learning opportunity that also reduces waste that can accompany store-bought produce.

This Clean Up Australia Day, make a pledge of what you will do better. You can turn it into art to make it fun too! Then, make sure you stick to it throughout the year.

Free Resource

A great way to teach children the value of cleaning and to get them to do it willingly, is by incorporating music. ‘Keep the Ocean Clean’ is a transitional song from the Bonkers Beat ‘Old Favourites with a Bonkers Twist’ book. 

It is a fun song, sung to the tune of ‘London Bridge’, for children to sing while cleaning at home or at kindergarten.  Click HERE to get free access to the lyrics.

We’d love to know how you plan to contribute to keeping Australia beautiful — share with us on social media!