With our upcoming Community Collection challenge, we thought we could go over the dos and don’ts of rubbish collection! 

Health and safety 

Collecting rubbish from your community is an amazing thing to do for the environment but it's incredibly important to make sure that you are staying safe and doing so.

First things first make sure that you go with someone else. Whether it be a friend, your guardian or a group of colleagues. By sticking with others you can make sure everyone is staying safe. 

When collecting rubbish it is highly encouraged that you wear some heavy-duty gardening gloves and closed-toed shoes. These will protect your hands and feet in case you pick up or step on anything sharp!  

Because Delta has swept through our country (and ruined a lot of people's plans) it is important that you wear a mask and social distance when out and about collecting rubbish. This will keep you and those in your community safe from the virus. After your clean up it is also important that you thoroughly wash your hands to get any dirt off and to keep Covid-19 at bay.

Throughout your collection, it is important to keep an eye on the weather, especially if you are near a waterway. If it starts raining heavily or gale-force winds, please head home… you can always collect another day. 

On beaches:

Make sure you keep an eye on the tide. Rubbish collecting is important but so is staying on firm ground… With the high tide coming in it might be time to go home or find another area. 

On riverbanks:

Make sure you don’t go too close to the edge, especially if it's a fast-moving river. If you were to fall into a river it may be a lot harder to get out. 

On bush walks:

Paths are there for a reason so please stick to them! By going off track you may harm local flora or get lost.

On the edge of roads

Road edges can be a great place to clean up rubbish due to the volume of rubbish they collect… however they can be dangerous if precautions aren’t taken. When cleaning up here we highly recommend a high-vis vest that will help drivers see you. Make sure you don’t go too close to the edge as cars driving past may cause a gust of wind that could blow you on the road. 

What to do with the rubbish:

Collecting rubbish is all well and good but what do you do with the rubbish afterwards? 

First of all, make sure that you take some sturdy rubbish bags with you when collecting. You’ll need something to hold all your rubbish in. If you can, try to reuse old plastic bags sitting around your house. 

After you have finished collecting rubbish it is important to dispose of it correctly. The last thing we want is people to dump the rubbish they have collected. That defeats the purpose of collecting it in the first place! Instead, there are a couple of options to safely dispose of it. 

- You could take it home and put it in your rubbish bin/wheelie bin. This will ensure that your rubbish will get taken care of. 

- Take your rubbish to your local tip. This might be a bit of a longer trip but might be the easiest method if you have collected a lot of rubbish! 

- Use your local council’s rubbish bags. Then check with their website to find out their collection days and leave them on the side of the road to be collected.