AAEE - SA Chapter
Clean Up Australia Day 2025
2 March All day
Clean Up Australia inspires and mobilises communities
to improve and conserve our environment,
eliminate litter and end waste.
More than 21 million Aussies have participated in Clean Up Australia activities and events over the past three decades.
Over that time Clean Up Australia has evolved to provide practical solutions to help all Australians live more sustainably every day of the year, and emerged as one of the country’s most recognised, credible and trusted environmental charities.
Today our focus is as much on preventing rubbish entering our environment as it is removing what has already accumulated.
What was started over thirty years ago, by an “average Australian” who had a simple idea to make a difference in his own backyard has now become the nation’s largest community-based environmental event.
Of course, Australia’s environmental challenges can’t be solved in just one day, so Clean Up Australia works with community, government and businesses to provide practical solutions to help us all live more sustainably every day of the year.
It is hard to believe that this initiative began as the inspiration of one man, Ian Kiernan, AO. An avid sailor, Ian was shocked and disgusted by the pollution and rubbish that he continually encountered in the oceans of the world. Taking matters into his own hands, Ian organised a community event with the support of a committee of friends, including co-founder Kim McKay AO.
This simple idea ignited an enthusiasm and desire among the local community to get involved and make a difference. And surely if a capital city could be mobilised into action, then so could the whole nation!
And so it was that Clean Up Australia Day was born in 1990.
Australian Association for Environmental Education South Australia Chapter acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains, and pay our respects to Elders past, present and future. We thank them for their care of country for many thousands of years. Niina Marni.