It’s your opportunity to keep the country beautiful
Iconic Kiwi charity Keep New Zealand Beautiful (KNZB) is excited to announce that its annual Clean Up Week, New Zealand’s largest movement against litter, will take place from September 17 until September 23, with registrations open now.
This annual community initiative focuses New Zealanders’ attention on just how much litter is out there, with volunteers last year joining together to help remove about 300 tonnes of litter across the motu, across an area equivalent to 2600 rugby fields. Keep NZ Beautiful is supported by its ambassadors, renowned celebrity chef Michael Van de Elzen, media personality Stacey Morrison and artist Hayley King, known as Flox.
Clean Up Week encourages Kiwi families to “Do the
Right Thing” and work together to clean up their little part of New Zealand.
All too often we see litter within our communities and pass it off as somebody else’s problem. Clean Up Week provides a great opportunity for everyone to actively participate in looking after their local environment, creating a more sustainable, ecologically diverse and pollution-free future for all New Zealanders.
This year Keep New Zealand Beautiful celebrates 55 years of environmental community work, a testament to the organisation’s dedication to protecting Aotearoa’s environment. Being clean and green is not only vital for our own health and our waterways, flora, fauna and whenua, but also for the protection of our much-valued tourism industry, our climate future and the wellbeing of generations to come.
Anyone can get involved in Clean Up Week from schools, businesses, community groups or even just individuals wanting to make a difference.
Last year we had 30,390 volunteers dedicate their time during Clean Up Week to tidy up their communities, and we’re urging more Kiwi families to take up the challenge this year.
For the first time, there will be the opportunity for those involved to contribute to KNZB’s Citizen Science programmes as part of Clean Up Week. The programmes are a great way for individuals to get involved, collaborate, and contribute to the litter solution while gaining experience in data collection and analysis.
This year we launched both our Upstream and Backyard Battle citizen science programmes which contribute to a national and international data set. Citizen science is a great opportunity for volunteers to make an ongoing contribution to their community, develop research skills and be part of a global movement. The data collected helps us paint a picture of the litter problem at a local and national level, inform policies and take action.
Registrations for Clean Up Week are open now until 23 September at knzb.org.nz.
Clean Up Week is supported in partnership with Waste Management, EnviroWaste and some councils, which allows volunteers to disposeregsubs of the rubbish they collect for free at selected transfer stations.
With the help of the Mars Wrigley Foundation, free clean up kits will be available on request for ECEs, schools, youth groups, Keep New Zealand Beautiful Community and
Educational branches, individual/ family and not-for-profit members who don’t have access to their own clean up materials.
People can also purchase reusable clean up kit resources at a cost from KNZB’s online shop.
To access free resources, participants must register their Clean Up Week event at knzb.org.nz. Resources such as event guides, posters, health and safety forms and certificates are available to download online once an event has been registered.
Visit knzb.org.nz for more information.
Heather Saunderson CEO, Keep NZ Beautiful
Listen to journos
It’s in the way he expresses himself but only if you get to hear the words.
With the introduction of fake news by Trump and fake language “Covfefe”, also by Trump, it appears politicians’ speeches should be taken with a word of warning, although the approach by the mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, is one of omission. He has stopped some reporters from hearing his words of wisdom with “there’s no ban but they’re not invited”.
There are so many attacks on honest journalism, and journalists, that we have gotten used to misrepresentation and straight out lies when we should be yelling from every street corner that the truth must be heard.
Perhaps it’s best that everyone stops listening to the Bristol mayor and a lot of others and start listening to the journalists who are still able to keep us informed.
Dennis Fitzgerald Melbourne, Australia