Kwinana Freeway Cleanup

Hey everyone,

I hope that you guys are having fun with your internships and are managing time well trying to juggle internships and uni assignments! Don't give up just yet because your internships may bring you guys a step closer to that dream job in PR!

During my internship, I took part in a one day Kwinana Freeway Cleanup organised by my internship organisation -the Keep Australia Beautiful Council Western Australia (KAB), which marked the beginning of a partnership with Main Roads WA. It was my first event with KAB so I was really excited because I finally had a chance to have a glimpse on what the KAB does and actually be part of it!

On an eventful Sunday morning, approximately 35 KAB staff and volunteers for the event gathered at the southern end of the Narrows Bridge on the river side at South Perth where a briefing was given. The clean up volunteers were divided into groups of three to four people where we were in charge of cleaning one of the eleven sections outlined on the map given out.

The volunteers were given thongs to pick up rubbish with, orange plastic bags for rubbish and white polypropylene bags for recyclable items. I was in a group with a serious-looking middle aged man and a chirpy female university student majoring in Science. Feeling a little nervous because it was my first volunteering event in Australia aside from being a Curtin Orientation volunteer, we set off to our destination where we were to clean up the third section listed in the clean up map.

Along the Freeway, we picked up a lot of rubbish which mainly consisted of cigarette butts; broken pieces of glass; bottles; candy wrappers; and pieces of rags. Sporting our Keep Australia Beautiful caps and light lime coloured vests, many cyclists and pedestrians recognised us as KAB volunteers and praised us for our efforts to keep the Freeway litter free, which made us so proud of what we were doing for the environment.

After two hours worth of cleaning up the Freeway, the clean up ended with a morning tea at the meeting point where volunteers were treated to light refreshments and had an opportunity to get to know the other volunteers and KAB staff. A majority of the volunteers were found to have picked up mainly cigarette butts as well, which did not come as a surprise to us since cigarette butts were the most littered items in the Litter Research carried out by the KAB.

Personally, I was very touched by the efforts of these volunteers that have given up their time on a precious Sunday morning to make a difference to the appearance of the Kwinana Freeway at South Perth. It felt really good to know that there were still people out there who had the common goal in achieving a litter-free environment. It was a very memorable event to be part of as I felt that I was actually contributing to the wellbeing of the WA environment and it was definitely an honour to work with these volunteers and the KAB.

Thanks for reading and I hope that you guys are playing a role in the society by not littering and making sure that other people do not do so as well! Till then, I will be back with more updates on my internship!

Debra Tan

Curtin Bentley