Clean Up Lorne to rid rubbish for a tenth year

David McCormack (right) organises the event every year alongside his wife Anne. BELOW LEFT: David Draper on his trusty Vespa to deliver the bags of rubbish at last year's event. Photos: SUPPLIED

SUNDAY, March 6 will mark a decade of the Clean Up Australia Day event in Lorne for organisers Anne and David McCormack, and the Lorne Beach Patrol.

Mr McCormack said the expectation was that more people will continue to join the annual Clean Up Lorne event.

“To go from 10 people at the initial Clean Up Australia Day 10 years ago, to around 45 at last year’s, is a pretty good effort from the community to see the numbers going up each year,” he said.

Next month’s nationwide Clean Up Australia Day event is the biggest event of the year for the Lorne Beach Patrol, the town’s community clean up organisation who conduct a monthly clean up across Lorne’s busiest areas.

The annual Lorne Clean Up Australia Day event will look to cover areas such as Lorne’s Main Beach, Lorne’s section of the Great Ocean Road and up as far as Erskine Falls Road.

This year the event will be run in tandem again with the Lorne Aquatic and Angling Club and its committed commodore Keith Miller, open to all Lorne-goers whether they are full-time locals or holiday-home owners.

“It’s not only locals who live here, it’s also those with holiday homes too,” Mr McCormack said.

“That’s why we are encouraging everyone to get around this community event that Sunday.”

Mr McCormack said the people who participate on the day each year are proactive in cleaning up the town and the rubbish is just a form of connecting people.

“It’s a whole range of people that get down,” he added.

“We have our regular monthly contributors and those who come down just for the day.

“With that, the word of mouth does spread, and we get families upon families joining in on the effort.”

Clean Up Australia Day continues to be a pivotal event in addressing the need to responsibly throw away rubbish.

Over 19 million Australians have donated time to the annual event in the 31 years it has been running, with more than 38.5 million hours of volunteer time donated.

For those interested in taking part this year, registrations for the Clean Up Lorne event will take place on the day from 8am at the Lorne Aquatic and Angling Club.

Other major sponsors include Lorne-based Live Wire Park and Jason’s Coffee.