Friends band together to clean neighbourhood

YOU may have heard about Keep Australia Beautiful, but did you know a group of young people are working to keep Maude magnificent?

On Sunday, 28 June, 19-year-old Georgia Gray and a group of seven friends organised and conducted their own roadside litter clean-up.

Travelling along Russells Bridge Road, Steiglitz Road, Maude-She Oaks Road and Perdrisat Road, the team collected more than 30 bags full of rubbish.

“There was fast food cups and packaging, and so many alcohol cans which we think could have been from cars passing on the way to music festivals,” Georgia said.

“When we were picking up rubbish, we also found camp chairs.”

The eight young people are all neighbours that enjoy rural walks together and “have an appreciation for the land we live on.”

Recently, they were all unimpressed by the junk they had spotted in their area while on foot from Anakie to Maude. This inspired them all to be proactive.

“For ages we’d all been talking about how bad the rubbish was, so we decided on a date, put it in our group chat and everyone came along,” Georgia said.

“Everyone in our group is very community focussed and we all hang out. It was really important for us to clean up our area because even if it’s not us that’s creating the mess, we still want to be living somewhere that is a good environment.

“People go to the country because it’s a nice area, and we live in the country because it’s a nice area. We’re here for a reason, and if people are polluting it, then why not just be in the city?”

Maude Landcare ran their own working bee clean-up last weekend, having seen the young group’s initiative. Georgia and her friends encourage others to get their hands dirty, too.

“If anyone else in Bannockburn or the rest of the Shire wants to get involved, it’s not hard to get a couple of friends together to pick up rubbish,” she said.

“It’s something fun to do.”