Healthy Cities Clean Ups celebrate World Clean Up Day 2025!
Over 280 volunteers took to the streets, parks, and riverside foreshore to pick up over 170 full bags of litter as part of our Healthy Cities Clean Ups.
As part of our annual Great Spring Clean Up running throughout September & October, and in partnership with Bupa, we hosted three huge Clean Up events on Friday 19 September – one in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane.
Photo: Clean Up Australia. Healthy Cities Clean Up Melbourne, VIC
On a bright Spring day in September, volunteers of all ages – from families and friends, to work colleagues, and individuals out for their first-ever Clean Up – gathered across their city to pick up hundreds of kilograms of litter.
Why focus on urban litter?
Cigarette butts are the most commonly littered item in Australia, and they are prolific in our cities. Cigarette butts are made of plastic that doesn’t break down but breaks up into fluffy microplastics that contain toxic chemicals that leach into the soil and waterways, harming wildlife and polluting our ecosystems.
Every Clean Up, like the Healthy Cities Clean Ups, helps raise awareness of this issue while giving our communities a practical, on-the-ground solution.
Photo: Clean Up Australia. Healthy Cities Clean Up Sydney and Melbourne
Powered by volunteers
We were absolutely inspired by the passion and dedication shown by everyone who took part. We chose to host our events on this date in celebration of World Clean Up Day, hosted each year on the 20th of September, and in recognition of the power of community action.
To everyone who showed up, a huge THANK YOU! Every piece of litter you collected helped protect the environment and showed that real change starts local while being part of a global movement.
Pip Kiernan, Chair of Clean Up Australia, speaks to the power of collective action in her live broadcast from Sydney on World Clean Up Day. Watch her interview here.
Photo: Clean Up Australia. Healthy Cities Clean Up Brisbane, QLD.
Join the Great Spring Clean Up!
Inspired by these Clean Up champions? (we sure are!) It’s easy to run your own Clean Up.
Simply pick a location, register your event, and we’ll send you everything you need (including materials, signage, and information) to have a fantastic couple of hours picking up litter!
Anyone can Clean Up, whether it’s on your own, with your family or your workmates – we’re here to help. Here’s how to get started.
We look forward to seeing you out there!
Photo: Clean Up Australia. Healthy Cities Clean Up Melbourne, Group Photo (top). Sarah Jones, Education Specialist, Clean Up Australia with Brisbane Sustainability Agency, Brisbane, QLD (centre) and Jenny Geddes, CEO, Clean Up Australia with City of Sydney Waste Outreach Team.
Photo: Clean Up Australia. Healthy Cities Clean Up Sydney, Clean Up Australia team.
The Great Spring Clean Up is presented in partnership with Bupa.
Article written by Greta Stevens, Community Manager at Clean Up Australia.
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